Assessment of potential biogas production from rice straw leachate in upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor

This study evaluates the potential of Rice Straw Leachate (RSL) to generate biogas and investigate its biodegradability by determining the differences between the theoretical yield and the actual one at its increasing organic loading rate. Seven litre working volume of Up-Flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor is employed under mesophilic condition at temperature of 38 for approximately 17 consecutive weeks. The process performance was evaluated based on the efficiency of COD removal and Specific Methane Production (SMP) in relation to the other parameters such as pH, Organic Loading Rate (OLR), Total Ammonia Nitrogen (TAN) and alkalinity ratio. The OLR were varied at 0.43, 0.55, 0.9 and 1.55g COD/L/d with average COD removal of 79%, 81.2%, 76.1%, and 75.8% respectively. The stability of anaerobic digestion of RSL in UASB was found maintained at an increasing OLR with indicator of pH, TAN and IA/PA ratio that always maintain in the range of 6.5-6.8, below 200mg/L and 0.3 respectively. Meanwhile, the optimum average SMP and COD removal efficiency were 0.18L CH4g-1CODrem and 81.2% respectively, at applied OLR of 0.55g COD/L/d. This study also revealed a relatively high deviation of SMP from its theoretical value, indicating its low degradability and the limitation of nutrient factors present in RSL

A review on activated carbon: process, application and prospects

Activated carbon (AC) is used in different states of applications after its discovery as a strong and reliable adsorbent. An overview on AC is presented together with revisiting the sources of AC generation; methods used to generate AC comprising of pyrolysis activation; physical activation; chemical activation and steam pyrolysis. The important factors affecting the AC production, the possible applications of AC and their future prospects are also discussed. AC is applied in water, wastewater and leachate treatments in many countries, especially to polish the color, remove the odor and some heavy metals. It is cheap and available, and can be produced from agricultural waste materials, e.g. rice husk, palm oil shell and coconut shell. The AC’s fine and porous structure and an extremely large particle surface area (>1000 m2/g) results in making it possessed powerful adsorptive properties. Therefore, the adsorption process using AC is found to be a potentially viable method of removing pollutants from aqueous solutions

A whole genome analyses of genetic variants in two Kelantan Malay individuals

The sequencing of two members of the Royal Kelantan Malay family genomes will provide insights on the Kelantan Malay whole genome sequences. The two Kelantan Malay genomes were analyzed for the SNP markers associated with thalassemia and Helicobacter pylori infection. Helicobacter pylori infection was reported to be low prevalence in the north-east as compared to the west coast of the Peninsular Malaysia and beta-thalassemia was known to be one of the most common inherited and genetic disorder in Malaysia.By combining SNP information from literatures, GWAS study and NCBI ClinVar, 18 unique SNPs were selected for further analysis. From these 18 SNPs, 10 SNPs came from previous study of Helicobacter pylori infection among Malay patients, 6 SNPs were from NCBI ClinVar and 2 SNPs from GWAS studies. The analysis reveals that both Royal Kelantan Malay genomes shared all the 10 SNPs identified by Maran (Single Nucleotide Polymorphims (SNPs) genotypic profiling of Malay patients with and without Helicobacter pylori infection in Kelantan, 2011) and one SNP from GWAS study. In addition, the analysis also reveals that both Royal Kelantan Malay genomes shared 3 SNP markers; HBG1 (rs1061234), HBB (rs1609812) and BCL11A (rs766432) where all three markers were associated with beta-thalassemia.Our findings suggest that the Royal Kelantan Malays carry the SNPs which are associated with protection to Helicobacter pylori infection. In addition they also carry SNPs which are associated with beta-thalassemia. These findings are in line with the findings by other researchers who conducted studies on thalassemia and Helicobacter pylori infection in the non-royal Malay population.Wan Khairunnisa Wan Juhari, Nur Aida Md Tamrin, Mohd Hanif Ridzuan Mat Daud, Hatin Wan Isa, Nurfazreen Mohd Nasir, Sathiya Maran, Nur Shafawati Abdul Rajab, Khairul Bariah Ahmad Amin Noordin, Nik Norliza Nik Hassan, Rick Tearle, Rozaimi Razali, Amir Feisal Merican and Bin Alwi Zilfali

Consolidation behaviour of the neutralisation spent pickle liquor (NSPL) sludge from steel works

The disposal of industrial waste sludge at a landfill has become a global problem especially when dealing with high moisture content material. Neutralisation Spent Pickle Liquor (NSPL) sludge waste generated in steel industry has been categorized as one of the slurry wastes in geotechnical engineering and poses serious handling problem due to its high water content. The NSPL sludge waste is categorized as a high water content material with a low solid concentration.The main objective in this paper is present a study related to compressive behaviour of the NSPL sludge material under external load. A series of consolidation tests of different NSPL initial water content and load pressure using Rowe cell equipment were performed. The consolidation behaviour of the NSPL sludge was shown to be complex, especially during the initial stages of the loading process. For any given load increment, an instantaneous compression was observed but no pore water dissipation were detected. The coefficient of permeability was found to be very high during the first few minutes, i.e. in the range of 10-4 – 10-5 m/s, and reduces significantly to 10-10 m/s after the first 17 hours of the test. The compression behaviour of the sludge materials are directly related to their coefficient of permeabilit

Systematic mapping study of quality attributes measurement in service oriented architecture

Background: Service oriented architecture (SOA) promotes software reuse and interoperability as its niche. Developer usually expects that services being used are performing as promised. Capability to measure quality of services helps developer to predict the software behavior. Measuring quality attributes of software can be treated as a way to ensure that the developed software will/does meet expected qualities. Objectives: This study investigates the state-of-art in quality attributes measurement for service oriented architecture. It will try to answer on type of studies that have been done regarding quality attributes measurement over service oriented architecture. Method: Systematic mapping study is selected as method for this study where primary studies related to quality attributes measurement are chosen and analyzed based on research questions. Result: Based on research questions, results of this mapping study shows, performance as highly seek quality attributes in this fields, where measurement technique that mostly used is metric and finally the measurement usually done on service level. Conclusion: this study is initiated to seek for how studies on quality attributes measurement in service oriented architecture has mature during these recent years. The result shows an up and down trends regarding number of studies whilst a lot of research gap can still be covered for future researche

Review on structural properties metrics in SOA design

The application of metrics for the purpose of measuring qualities of software has been widely practice within software engineering industry. Though in the beginning most measurement involves artifacts such as source code, quality measurement from the beginning of software lifecycle is slowly gathering attention. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a new paradigm that introduces way to develop software in a faster way by adopting available services. SOA application is better comprehended using its composition design. Thus in earlier researches, many metrics had been proposed in relation to SOA design. This paper focuses on proposed metrics from earlier research works specifically one that measure the structural properties of SOA application. The structural properties metrics selected are analyzed from both static and dynamic perspectives. Around seventeen papers are selected during the data collection process. The proposed metrics are then separated into its respective properties type and are further analyzed to find required characteristics for each discussed property. The result from the analysis is list of construction characteristics for each structural property that can be used as guidelines for future researchers that incline on proposing new metrics. The metrics classification also indicates on research gap within the area of structural properties metrics in SOA domain

Role of NGOs and CBOs in waste management

Background: Developing cities like Khulna, the third largest metropolitan city in Bangladesh, have now begun to confess the environmental and public health risks associated with uncontrolled dumping of solid wastes mainly due to the active participation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) in municipal solid waste (MSW) management. Methods: A survey was conducted to observe the present scenarios of secondary disposal site (SDS), ultimate disposal site (UDS), composting plants, medical wastes management and NGOs and CBOs MSW management activities. Results: A total of 22 NGOs and CBOs are involved in MSW management in 31 wards of Khulna City Corporation. About 9 to 12% of total generated wastes are collected by door-to-door collection system provided by mainly NGOs and CBOs using 71 non-motorized rickshaw vans. A major portion of collected wastes is disposed to the nearest SDS by these organizations and then transferred to UDS or to private low-lying lands from there by the city authority. A small portion of organic wastes is going to the composting plants of NGOs. Conclusion: The participation of NGOs and CBOs has improved the overall MSW management system, especially waste collection process from sources and able to motivate the residents to store the waste properly and to keep clean the premises

Parameters affecting the performance of a low cost solar still

This study aims at developing a low cost technique to be used in rural and coastal areas for converting saline water into potable water using solar energy. A triangular solar still (TrSS) was, therefore, designed and developed with cheap, lightweight, local and available materials. A number of field experiments were carried out to evaluate the effects of solar radiation intensity, ambient air temperature and the initial water depth on the daily water production of the TrSS. A time lag of about and hour between the hourly peaks of solar radiation and water production is observed. Finally, a few essential relationships were attained, e.g. between the daily production and the initial water depth, between the daily production and daily solar radiation, and between the daily production and the average ambient temperature. The effect of the initial water depth in the basin on the daily water productivity was evaluated by varying the water depths (1.5, 2.5 and 5 cm) with the climatic condition of Malaysia and an inverse proportional relationship was revealed between them. However, the daily water productivity is nearly proportional to the daily solar radiation. In addition, some important water quality parameters were tested in the laboratory to evaluate the distillate quality and were then compared with the drinking water standards

Manufacture of low-cost activated carbon using sago palm bark and date pits by physiochemical activation

Two raw materials, sago palm bark (SPB) and date pits, were utilized as precursors to prepare high porosity activated carbon (AC). The porosity of these two raw materials was compared with that of commercial AC made from coconut shells. The physicochemical activation method was used for AC preparation, and it consisted of two steps, carbonization and activation. The activation process was performed using zinc chloride (ZnCl2) as an activation agent. N2 adsorption-desorption analysis was carried out to characterize the porosity of AC. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was conducted for the two raw materials. The adsorbent made from SPB, which showed the maximum surface area of 1634 m2/g at the 700°C activation temperature for one hour, while the surface area of prepared AC from date pits was 1367 m2/g. Both prepared ACs had a larger surface area than commercial AC made with coconut shell (1348 m2/g)