Adsorption of phosphate from domestic wastewater treatment plant effluent onto the laterites in a hydrodynamic column

High concentration of phosphate (PO4

Performance assessment of cassava peel starch and alum as dual coagulant for turbidity removal in dam water

The agricultural and food processing industries generate a significant portion of residues, refuse and waste. Conversion of these wastes into useful end product would be beneficial not only to the economy but also the environment as it reducing the solid waste disposal problem. The present study was aimed to investigate the performance of cassava peel starch (CPS) extracted from cassava peel waste in combination with alum to act as dual coagulant for turbidity removal in raw water from Sembrong dam. Comparative studies by employing both alum and CPS as primary coagulant using several series of Jar test were also conducted. Results showed that the usage of alum-CPS as dual coagulant not only enhanced the turbidity removal with maximum achievement up to 91.47%, but also significantly improve the coagulation process by reducing both alum dosage and settling time up to 50% which indicates broad prospects to be further developed as emerging green coagulant

Methane optimization in multi-stage anaerobic reactor (Ms-Ar)

The biological conversion of biomass in Anaerobic Digestion (AD) into methane was studied by many researchers in recent years. In the present study, optimization of methane production during chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal was observed in a novel Multi-Stage Anaerobic Reactor (MS-AR). A synthetic glucose was used as a feed substrate and the reactor was operated at a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 1 to 4 d. Two complementary test procedures for methane optimization were evaluated; the theoretical and experimental. The theoretical methane gas was recorded as 50.13, 50.02, 50.16, and 50.22 % for HRT of 4, 3, 2 and 1 day, respectively. The results signify well with the empirical formula at each HRTs studied in the reactor. However, the quantity of methane gas present in the real application is significantly lower than the theoretical. This is due to the microorganism activity in the reactor that may have interfere with the efficiency of the biogas production. Actual data showed a decrease in the methane gas production (35.4, 21.2, 19.8, and 18.4 %) in the reactor. Thus, theoretical formula together with the actual data provides alternative method for the evaluation of bioenergy potential in AD

Performance of an up-flow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) reactor treating landfill leachate containing heavy metals and formaldehyde

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) landfill leachate is a serious environmental issue and treated using various methods, mostly involving biological treatment. In the present study, an up-flow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) was used for the treatment of matured landfill leachate that contains heavy metals (As, Fe, Ni, and Cd) and Formaldehyde (FA). Accordingly, the OLR to the UASB reactor was gradually increased from 0.125 to 2.5 kg CODm-3d-1, to observe the process performance. The process performance of the reactor was characterized in terms of pH, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) removal, Total Volatile Acid (TVA) production, Mixed Liquor Suspended Solids (MLSS), Mixed Liquor Volatile Suspended Solids (MLVSS) washout, and Methane composition. Results showed that at a Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT) of 4 days and an OLR of 0.125 kg CODm-3d-1, up to 79.04% COD removal efficiency was observed. However, when the OLR was increased gradually from 0.375 to 2.5 kg CODm-3d-1, the COD removal efficiency decreased to 9.5%, suggesting that the high accumulation of heavy metals may have inhibited the methanogens. During this period, the heavy metal and formaldehyde concentration were 9.40, 0.43, 0.50, 12.80 and 8.60 mgL-1 respectively

Humanizing the Localizing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Education and Research at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)

Preliminary actions taken by the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) towards the value-added from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework that may relevant in the current indicators, elements, values and impacts, and the also constructive analysis by different sectors at High Educational Institutions (HEIs). Typically, the instrumentation on performances of each element (or indicator) in research and education portfolios are majorly defined as Key Performance Index (KPI) and/or Key Achievement/Amal Index (KAIs). All of instrumentations suitable at the vertical strategic plan to disseminate the workload across stakeholders in the HEIs. A strategic plan by each university will represent the core values and relevancy of niche area in academic and research sectors. However, UTM already is identifying the most critical element, far beyond the KPI/KAI successful story which focusses under the Pelan Global Universiti (PGU I-III) to outstanding values of inclusiveness, synergy and visibility with the important Desired State 2020. The UTM core values will serve Integrity, Synergy, Excellent and Sustainability (ISES) in all operation/services throughout trustworthy engagement with stakeholders. Meantime, the action plan for enVision 2025 institualized the pragmatic roadmaps align with the SDGs at the global benchmark, in order to horizontally manage the great grassroots improvement and further develop unique vision to UTM; named as UTMDNA. This paper describes the proactive strategic plan by UTM management to advocate the next roadmap altogether with high impact sustainable education and research works. Most of the concurrent achievement, action-plan and long-term Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) is emphasized in the life-balance strategy framework. The second wave (2020 - 2030) of SDGs in UTM is among the most recent thoughts towards the sustainability requirements specially to serve the UN SDG and enVision 2025 (UTM). Therefore, Malaysian higher education institutions should take proactive steps in culturing SDG initiatives – guided but not bounded by the specific measures set-out in the UN Conferenc

Palm Oil Mill Effluent as an Environmental Pollutant

In recent decades, Malaysia has been known as one of the world’s leading producers and exporters of palm oil products. Every year, the number of palm oil mills increases rapidly, thus increasing the capacity of fresh fruit bunch waste or effluent discharge. Based on the data from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board in 2012, Malaysia produced 99.85 million tons of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) per year. However, about 5–5.7 tons of water was required in order to sterilize the palm fruit bunches and clarify the extracted oil to produce 1 ton of crude palm oil resulting in 50% of the water turning into palm oil mill effluent (POME). POME is one of the major environmental pollutants in Malaysia. The characteristics of POME and its behavior, if discharged directly, in water are described in this chapter. The suspended solid and nutrient content in POME could be able to support the growth of algae. This chapter aims to demonstrate that POME could be used as a main source for algae production, and this effluent is one of the main environmental problems in the tropical region especially in Malaysia

Effect of organic loading rate (OLR) on modified anaerobic baffled reactor (MABR) performance

The performance of a Modified Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (MABR) treating synthetic wastewater at different Organic Loading Rate (OLR) was investigated. The MABR was seeded with anaerobic sludge taken from a local municipal wastewater treatment plant and fed continuously with glucose at an OLR of 0.258, 0.787 and 2.471 kg COD m-3 d-1 at a Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT) of 4 days. Results showed that 99.7% Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) removal was achieved during the OLR of 0.258 kg COD m-3 d-1. However, when the OLR was increased to 0.787 kg COD m-3 d- 1, a minor decrease in the COD removal efficiency (95%) was noted. Further increase of the OLR to 2.471 kg COD m-3 d-1 caused the reactor performance to deteriorate dramatically in a COD removal efficiency of 39.5%. Biogas yield was evaluated for the reactor system and followed similar decreasing trend (0.542, 0.524 and 0.214 l g-1CODdestroyed for the different OLRs respectively). There were no significant different in the pH profiles (6.71 – 7.01) during the first two OLRs (0.258 and 0.787 kg COD m-3 d-1). However, during the final OLR (2.471 kg COD m-3 d-1) the pH profile in MABR dropped to significantly as low as 4.01. Similar trend was also observed in the volatile acids (VA) profile where higher values (2880 mg/L) were found at highest OLR. The poor performance of the MABR at high OLR signifies that the microorganisms could not metabolise the organic substance and probably need more time for digestion

Reliable multiclass cancer classification of microarray gene expression profiles using an improved wavelet neural network

Properly designing a wavelet neural network (WNN) is crucial for achieving the optimal generalization performance. In this paper, two different approaches were proposed for improving the predictive capability of WNNs. First, the types of activation functions used in the hidden layer of the WNN were varied. Second, the proposed enhanced fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm—specifically, the modified point symmetry-based fuzzy c-means (MSFCM) algorithm—was employed in selecting the locations of the translation vectors of the WNN. The modified WNN was then applied to heterogeneous cancer classification using four different microarray benchmark datasets. The comparative experimental results showed that the proposed methodology achieved an almost 100% classification accuracy in multiclass cancer prediction, leading to superior performance with respect to other clustering algorithms. Subsequently, performance comparisons with other classifiers were made. An assessment analysis showed that this proposed approach outperformed most of the other classifiers