Food waste solution at home: conventional and rapid composting techniques

Food waste is a significant concern in waste management in recent years due to the inevitable outcome of human consumption in modern society. It has happened in almost every home daily. In Malaysia, 44.5% of organic waste (OW) consists of food waste (FW), this figure would increase with population growth. Therefore, without effective FW management, untreated FW dumping will cause environmental pollution, thus affecting human health as well as ecosystems. Conventional methods such as landfill and incineration have long been the most popular practice to address the FW issues, offering simple and cost-effective approach. Most of the time, these methods are not sustainable since they pose other environmental pollution such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and leachate contamination leading to groundwater pollutions. Other issues with landfills are that self-composting at landfill site takes a long time and most landfills in Malaysia are almost at full capacity. The composting technique has recently gained more attraction as a cost-effective and sustainable method for the FW issue. This paper reviews techniques of composting food waste at home by using a conventional natural and rapid process. The performance of each technique in terms of cost, sustainability, user-friendly and time are measured in this review. Finally, the future direction of food waste solution by sustainable composting technique is briefly discussed in this paper

Alternative railway tools and sustainability in RAMS: A review

RAMS is a tool and methodology that combines reliability engineering, availability, maintainability, and safety in a way that is tailored to the system’s goals. A comprehensive view on RAMS’s components and theory behind the underlying mathematical model is not to be found in journal publication. This paper would also discuss several benefits and sustainability of RAMS. Life Cycle Cost (LCC) would also being introduce as a complementary discipline in term of costing that normally regarded parallel to RAMS. There are a series of methods that being utilized at every discipline of the RAMS component such as Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Failure Mode Effect Critical Analysis (FMECA), Reliability Block Diagram and many more. Some commonly used methods would be highlighted in this paper. RAMS application and implementation will aid asset owners, contractors, and operators in efficiently procuring, developing, and operating their assets. However, further research and analysis is needed in the railway industry to build a viable framework for project and operation implementation using both tools

Quality and first flush analysis of stormwater runoff from a tropical commercial catchment

This paper examines the storm runoff quality from a commercial area in south Johor, Malaysia. Six storm events with a total of 68 storm runoff samples were analyzed. Event Mean Concentration (EMC) for all constituents analysed showed large inter-event variation. Site mean concentrations (SMC) for total suspended solids (TSS), oil and grease (O&G), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N), nitrite-nitrogen (NO2-N), ammonia-nitrogen (NH3-N), total phosphorus (Total P) and Soluble P are 261, 4.31, 74, 192, 1.5, 0.006, 1.9, 1.12 and 0.38 mg/L, respectively. The SMCs at the studied site are higher than those reported in many urban catchments. The mean baseflow concentrations were higher than the EMCs for COD, Soluble P, NH3-N, NO3-N, Total P and NO2-N. However, the reverse was observed for TSS and O&G. All pollutants showed the occurrence of first flush phenomenon with the highest strength was observed for TSS, COD and NH3-N

Influence of marine kaolin mortar mixed with effective microorganism on external heat transfer

Marine kaolin can be found easily at the coastal regions in Malaysia. During infrastructure works, huge quantities were excavated and is treated as unsuitable soil material (USM). This study offers a value-added solution to convert marine kaolin into supplementary cementitious material (SCM) through thermal activation. 10% replacement of Ordinary Portland Cement is incorporated together with Effective Microorganism (EM) into the mortar mix. The usage of EM between 5% and 25% with interval of 5% were manipulated to enhance the properties of the mortar mix. The intention of incorporating both marine kaolin and EM as mortar mix was to observe the significant effects on heat transfer. As a result, the surface temperature of the mortar mix was reduced up to 8% and the thermal conductivity shows appropriate insulating materials

Dual-layer hollow fiber MT-SOFC using lithium doped CGO electrolyte fabricated via phase-inversion technique

Anode-supported micro-tubular solid oxide fuel cell (MT-SOFC) made from lithium (Li) doped cerium gadolinium oxide (CGO) electrolyte was prepared via phase inversion based co-extrusion/co-sintering technique. In this study, the co-sintering temperature of CGO electrolyte with anode layer was reduced by adding Li that acts as sintering additive. The prepared Li doped CGO (Li-CGO) were characterized by shrinkage analysis, atomic resolution analytical microscope (ARM) observation and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) spectra. Meanwhile, the developed half-cell of MT-SOFC which was co-sintered at 1350–1500°C with interval of 50°C were characterized by its mechanical strength, gas tightness and microstructural analysis. The electrochemical performances of the cells were tested in anode-supported MT-SOFCs with configuration of Ni-CGO anode, Li-CGO electrolyte and LSCF-CGO cathode using humidified hydrogen as fuel and oxygen air as oxidant. MT-SOFCs fabricated with Li-CGO electrolyte were found to exhibit maximum power density of 60Wm−2 at 500°C compared to 200Wm−2 for cells with unmodified CGO electrolyte. The poor performance of cell with Li-CGO electrolyte is probably due to the combined effects of (i) moderately dense electrolyte layer and (ii) appearance of electronic conductivity in Li-CGO electrolyte. Nevertheless, lowering the sintering temperature has shown good properties of the electrolyte materials, which allows the electrolyte materials and anode can be co-sintered together at lower temperature

Enhancement in photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue by LaFeO3-GO integrated photocatalyst-adsorbents under visible light irradiation

Perovskite LaFeO3 photocatalyst prepared by using sol-gel glucose method was assembled on graphene oxide sheets to produce integrated photocatalyst-adsorbents (IPCA) and investigated as photocatalyst for the degradation of methylene blue under visible light irradiation. The prepared photocatalyst was characterized by FTIR, XRD, FESEM, BET specific surface area measurement, TEM/HRTEM and UV-Vis spectroscopy analysis. The FTIR, FESEM and TEM analysis has suggested that the photocatalyst LaFeO3 has been successfully embedded at the surface of the graphene oxide (GO) sheets due to a strong interaction between the photocatalyst and the adsorbents matrix. Methylene blue degradation shows that IPCA possesses higher photodegradation kinetics compared to bare LaFeO3 photocatalyst. The resultant photocatalyst also possesses magnetic properties which can overcome the difficulty in recollecting and removal of photocatalyst suspension in water after photocatalytic treatment

Analysis of recurrent parent genome recovery in marker-assisted backcross breeding program in watermelon

Marker–assisted backcross (MABC) is a breeding technique used to develop improved varieties by transferring a gene or QTL into the genome background of an elite variety after 2-3 generations. It is an advanced way of overcoming challenges facing conventional backcross methods as it speeds up the recurrent parent genome recovery (RPG). In order to develop a Fusarium wilt resistant watermelon variety, MABC was used to incorporate wilt resistant gene from the resistant inbred line CS-19 into the genome of the high yielding but wilt susceptible inbred line BL-14. There was estimation of RPG recovery in earlier generations with the use of polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. A total of 380 SSR markers were tested to identify polymorphism between the parents and 78 of them were found to be polymorphic. Background analysis revealed 74.7 – 94.4 and 86.6 – 96.8 % recovery in BC1F1 and BC2F1 generations, respectively. In the BC2F2 generation, RPG recovery ranged from 95.1 and 96.9 and the average in the selected lines was 96.14 %. This study led to the selection of plants that are similar to the recurrent parent and it showed the usefulness of MABC for the quick recovery of a parental genome in a backcrossing population