Journal of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Biotechnology
Biological generation in anaerobic environments such as enteric fermentation and anaerobic waste ... more Biological generation in anaerobic environments such as enteric fermentation and anaerobic waste treatment from agriculture sector are the major contributor of methane gas which has the potential as biogas. The aimed of this study was to identify methane-producing bacteria in anaerobic vessel which contained a mixture of Palm Oil Mill Sludge (POMS) and solid cud taken from the first compartment of cow’s stomach (1:2 and 2:1 ratio) as co-mixture. The co-mixture was incubated at 50 °C in a 2 L vessel with initial starter of 400 ml and sampling was conducted every 4 weeks interval during 12 weeks of incubation. For specific detection of methanogens, 16S rRNA-cloning analysis was carried out. Methanobrevibacter sp. and Methanosaeta sp. were confirmed to be presence within the 2:1 ratio of co-mixture while only Methanobrevibacter sp. was found in 1:2 ratio of co-mixture on both Week 0 and Week 4. No methanogens were detected for both co-mixtures on Week 8 and Week 12. Â
International Journal of Biology and Biomedical Engineering
Waterborne parasites, particularly Cryptosporidium and Giardia, are emerging pathogens implicatin... more Waterborne parasites, particularly Cryptosporidium and Giardia, are emerging pathogens implicating the safety level of drinking water globally. The aim of this study was to determine the distribution pattern of waterborne parasites in raw and treated water at urban and rural water treatment plants and untreated water from gravity-feed system in Kuching, Sarawak. This study focused on water treatment plants (four urban and two rural) and Bong rural community that utilise gravity-feed system in Kuching, Sarawak. A total of 69 raw and treated water samples were collected and processed before being used in detection of Cryptosporidium and Giardia using Aqua-Glo™ G/C Direct and 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole stains, as well as other parasites that were detected using Lugol’s iodine staining. Parameters which were temperature, pH, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, total dissolved solids, conductivity, faecal coliform of the water as well as rainfall intensity were determined. Correlation of the...
Satu kaedah yang ringkas dan cepat telah dihasilkan untuk menentukan racun perosak jenis organofo... more Satu kaedah yang ringkas dan cepat telah dihasilkan untuk menentukan racun perosak jenis organofosforns di dalam sayur-sayuran dengan kromatografi gas. Sisa baki racun perosak diekstrak dengan aseton dan diklorometana. Ekstrak dibersihkan dengan turns ekstraksi fasa pepejal mod bercampur iaitu amina kuaterner dan aminopropil. Racun perosak ditentukan dengan kromatografi gas yang dilengkapkan dengan pengesan fotometrik nyala. Pengembalian 9 racun perosak untuk tigajenis sayur-sayuran iaitu lobak merah, timun dan sawi hijau pada aras 0.5 mg/kg adalah di antara 80.3% dan 115.0%. Pengembalian yang rendah telah diperoleh untuk methamidophos dan dimethoate. Keputusan ini dibandingkan dengan kaedah yang digunakan pada masa ini iaitu tanpa menggunakan pembersihan. ABSTRACf A simple and rapid gas chromatography method has been developed for simultaneous determination of organophosphorus pesticides in vegetables. Residues are extracted with acetone and dichloromethane. Extracts are cleaned up...
During the last century, a great deal of research and development as well as application has been... more During the last century, a great deal of research and development as well as application has been devoted to pollution control advance technologies for treatment and management of both solid and liquid waste generated from palm oil mills. The major reason for such huge efforts is that waste generated from palm oil mills have been declared as one of the major source of environmental pollution. Although palm oil mills generate both solid and liquid wastes, but according to this review, palm oil mill effluent (POME) has been singled out by the operators as the most expensive and difficult waste to manage. This paper aims to present the potentials of POME as a resource that can contribute to world economic and sustainable development. The emergent of the new biotechnological advances and POME treatment technologies like POMETHANE (an anaerobic thermophilic digestion process which maximizes the yield of biogas production) has changed the status of POME from waste to resource. Use of curr...
Abstract: During the last century, a great deal of research and development as well as applicatio... more Abstract: During the last century, a great deal of research and development as well as application has been devoted to pollution control advance technologies for treatment and management of both solid and liquid waste generated from palm oil mills. The major reason for such huge efforts is that waste generated from palm oil mills have been declared as one of the major source of environmental pollution. Although palm oil mills generate both solid and liquid wastes, but according to this review, palm oil mill effluent (POME) has been singled out by the operators as the most expensive and difficult waste to manage. This paper aims to present the potentials of POME as a resource that can contribute to world economic and sustainable development. The emergent of the new biotechnological advances and POME treatment technologies like POMETHANE (an anaerobic thermophilic digestion process which maximizes the yield of biogas production) has changed the status of POME from waste to resource. U...
A study was carried out to compare the cleanup procedures for the determination of organophosphor... more A study was carried out to compare the cleanup procedures for the determination of organophosphorus pesticides in vegetables. Eleven organophosphorus pesticides were extracted with acetone and methylene chloride. Extracts were cleanup by solid-phase extraction (SPE) mixed-mode column using quaternary amine and aminopropyl (SAX/NH2) or octadecyl (C18) sorbents. The pesticides were determined by gas chromatography with flame photometric detector. The recovery results obtained from the SPE SAX/NH2 and C18 cleanups in carrot, cucumber and green mustard samples were in the range of 71.0 % to 115 %. Lower recoveries were obtained for polar pesticides, methamidophos and dimethoate. These results were compared to the method currently used in the laboratory which does not include any cleanup.
Many palm oil mills in Malaysia still discharged either partially treated or raw palm oil mill ef... more Many palm oil mills in Malaysia still discharged either partially treated or raw palm oil mill effluent (POME) into nearby rivers. Either partially treated or untreated POME depletes a water body of its oxygen and suffocates aquatic life. Vast amounts of biogas are also generated during anaerobic digestion of POME. This paper presented the key findings from the survey mailed to 86 palm oil mills located in Sarawak and Sabah. The survey results provide an overview of the position of the palm oil mills operators on current advance POME treatment technology (PTT) in relation to achieving zero discharge concepts. The survey attempted to identify the key issues about the PTT in respect to feasibility of zero discharge concepts in palm oil mills. The results shows that, although palm oil mills generate a lot of different types of wastes during processing of Fresh Fruit Bunches, according to the operators and available literature, POME is the most difficult waste to manage. The results als...
Bioconversion of palm oil mill effluent (POME) to generate methane gas via anaerobic dige... more Bioconversion of palm oil mill effluent (POME) to generate methane gas via anaerobic digestion involves a consortium of microbes which are responsible in several steps of the biodegradation process. In this study, the microbial community from a selected POME was characterised via molecular techniques and through culture-based plating in order to determine their composition, and subsequently understand their function in the anaerobic community. Genomic DNA of the microbial community was extracted using direct extraction technique, followed by PCR targeting the 16S rDNA region. Distinct fragments of approximately 1100 bp in sizes were successfully amplified using PCR and cloned onto Escherichia coli XL-1 Blue. Upon sequencing of the fragments, BLAST queries identified the bacteria as Thermoanaerobacterium sp. In addition, two other bacterial species were successfully isolated from the POME by culturing on DVS agar...
In Malaysia, abundant coal resources were found in Sarawak and Sabah. The utilization of coal res... more In Malaysia, abundant coal resources were found in Sarawak and Sabah. The utilization of coal resources, to date, is emphasized on the energy productions. The non-energy utilization as soil conditioner is unexplored. Therefore, this study attempted to characterize the coal humic acids extracted from Mukah coal and to evaluate its properties as soil conditioner. The coal humic acids from the regenerated sample were also assessed. The results revealed that different extractants, concentrations, mesh size and temperature influenced the properties of humic acids. The extraction with KOH at 0.5 M produced humic acids with low ash content and high acidic functional groups, which are substantial as soil conditioner. However, the essential yield was low (20%). Regeneration of coal sample with 10% nitric acids improved the yield to an average of 83.45%. The acidic functional groups of nitrohumic acids were improved with the ash content remained at a low level. The UV-VIS study revealed no si...
This paper reports the experience of activity based learning conducted in Chemistry Carnival 2011... more This paper reports the experience of activity based learning conducted in Chemistry Carnival 2011 in Sarawak. The active learning oriented activities include hands-on experiments, quiz, poster and mini lectures were used to educate the school students some basics chemistry relating to daily life. Approximately 300 students attended the activities. Observations and questionnaires were used as the instruments to describe and measure the learning experience whether various activities have contributed to effective learning. Among these, hands-on experiments were found to be the most effective approach; more than 86% of the participants agree that they have learnt well from this peer mentoring and collaborative learning strategy. Posters, mini lectures and quiz however were relatively less favoured as they suffered some inherited shortcomings for example lecture is lacking in interactivity, poster and quiz similarly fall short in proactive involvement of participants. Activity based lear...
Humic acid (HA), known as the black gold of agriculture, is increasingly becoming popular for use... more Humic acid (HA), known as the black gold of agriculture, is increasingly becoming popular for use in agriculture. HA from sub-bituminous coals from Mukah, Sarawak, commercial HA product (leonardite), humified peat and various types of compost were extracted and their chemical characteristics compared. HA yield from various coals ranged from 1.5–11.1% while composts yielded HA from a low of 4.2% to 16.5%. Humified peat and commercial leonardite contained 31.6% and 58.5 % HA respectively. Functional group analyses of extracted HA from Mukah coals showed a narrow range of carboxylic group from 3.2–3.5 meq g–1 while phenol-OH group was between 6.8–7.3 meq g–1. Functional groups in HA from composts were, however, lower than those obtained from coals. The total acidity of HA from composts ranged from 5.6–9.5 meq g–1, carboxylic group at 1.9–3.5 meq g–1 and phenol-OH group, 3.5–6.2 meq g–1. Fourier Transformed Infrared (FTIR) spectra of extracted HA from coals, leonardite and chrysanthemum...
Malaysia is faced with daunting challenges relating to household waste segregation. Due to an inc... more Malaysia is faced with daunting challenges relating to household waste segregation. Due to an increase in population, economic growth, enforcement, infrastructure, public attitude, awareness and participation among others, source segregation is considered a crucial issue in Malaysia, particularly in urban settings. This paper presents the key findings of the quantitative (questionnaire) survey administered among 235 households in Kuching South City and qualitative (interview) survey with the Natural Resource & Environmental Board (NREB) and Kuching South City Council. This survey attempts to identify the limiting and motivating factors on the part of households to waste segregation. The result shows that age, sex, race and education is insignificant towards waste segregation. The result also shows a significant difference between waste segregators and non-waste separators on their level of perception towards implementation of laws for source segregation. Result also shows that the e...
A simple and rapid method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of five pyrethroi... more A simple and rapid method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of five pyrethroid pesticides in vegetables. Residues were extracted with acetone and methylene chloride. Extracts were cleaned up by solid-phase extraction mixed-mode column using quaternary amine and aminopropyl sorbents. The pesticides were determined by gas chromatography with electron capture detector. The recoveries from three vegetables: carrot, cucumber and green mustard, spiked at 0.25-0.5 mg/kg were 72.0 to 117.0%. The results were comparable to those obtained by the silica gel cleanup method.
Palm oil mill effluent (POME) contains a high amount of nutrients and organic matter; therefore, ... more Palm oil mill effluent (POME) contains a high amount of nutrients and organic matter; therefore, it has been considered as an alternative liquid fertilizer (LF). However, the studies on the reuse of POME as fertilizer have been mostly limited to nutrients absorption but the leachates were neglected. Such approach caused potential impacts on ground water pollution. Thus, this research aimed to compare the leachabilities of ammoniacal nitrogen (NH3-N) and phosphate (PO43-), as well as the growth rates of oil palm seedlings in three different watering conditions. Six oil palm seedlings were watered with either POME, LF or tap water. The leachates from each seedling pot were collected weekly and analyzed for their NH3-N and PO43- concentrations. The pots which were watered with tap water showed the highest leaching rate of 0.0251 mg.L-1.week-1 for NH3-N and 0.0392 mg.L-1.week-1 for PO43-. The average concentrations of NH3-N in the leachates from the POME, LF and tap water potswere 0.45,...
Photocatalysis, electrolysis and Fenton process are three important advanced oxidation processes ... more Photocatalysis, electrolysis and Fenton process are three important advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) which produce hydroxyl radical in order to degrade organic matter in wastewater within 4-6 hours under ambient conditions. A photocatalysis, electrolysis and Fenton (photo-electro-Fenton) process hybrid system has been carried out to treat the diluted palm oil mill effluent (POME) in this study. An electrolytic cell was set up with a stainless steel anode and a platinum wire cathode with the applied cell voltage of 1.5 V. The diluted POME was then treated in the cell with the mixture of titanium oxide as the photocatalyst, sodium sulfate solution as the electrolyte, hydrogen peroxide and iron sulfate as the Fenton reagents. The effects on the duration, pH, concentration of TiO2 and different light conditions on the removal efficiency of the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the diluted POME were studied. The optimal conditions for the photo-electro-Fenton hybrid system were found to...
Journal of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Biotechnology
Biological generation in anaerobic environments such as enteric fermentation and anaerobic waste ... more Biological generation in anaerobic environments such as enteric fermentation and anaerobic waste treatment from agriculture sector are the major contributor of methane gas which has the potential as biogas. The aimed of this study was to identify methane-producing bacteria in anaerobic vessel which contained a mixture of Palm Oil Mill Sludge (POMS) and solid cud taken from the first compartment of cow’s stomach (1:2 and 2:1 ratio) as co-mixture. The co-mixture was incubated at 50 °C in a 2 L vessel with initial starter of 400 ml and sampling was conducted every 4 weeks interval during 12 weeks of incubation. For specific detection of methanogens, 16S rRNA-cloning analysis was carried out. Methanobrevibacter sp. and Methanosaeta sp. were confirmed to be presence within the 2:1 ratio of co-mixture while only Methanobrevibacter sp. was found in 1:2 ratio of co-mixture on both Week 0 and Week 4. No methanogens were detected for both co-mixtures on Week 8 and Week 12. Â
International Journal of Biology and Biomedical Engineering
Waterborne parasites, particularly Cryptosporidium and Giardia, are emerging pathogens implicatin... more Waterborne parasites, particularly Cryptosporidium and Giardia, are emerging pathogens implicating the safety level of drinking water globally. The aim of this study was to determine the distribution pattern of waterborne parasites in raw and treated water at urban and rural water treatment plants and untreated water from gravity-feed system in Kuching, Sarawak. This study focused on water treatment plants (four urban and two rural) and Bong rural community that utilise gravity-feed system in Kuching, Sarawak. A total of 69 raw and treated water samples were collected and processed before being used in detection of Cryptosporidium and Giardia using Aqua-Glo™ G/C Direct and 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole stains, as well as other parasites that were detected using Lugol’s iodine staining. Parameters which were temperature, pH, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, total dissolved solids, conductivity, faecal coliform of the water as well as rainfall intensity were determined. Correlation of the...
Satu kaedah yang ringkas dan cepat telah dihasilkan untuk menentukan racun perosak jenis organofo... more Satu kaedah yang ringkas dan cepat telah dihasilkan untuk menentukan racun perosak jenis organofosforns di dalam sayur-sayuran dengan kromatografi gas. Sisa baki racun perosak diekstrak dengan aseton dan diklorometana. Ekstrak dibersihkan dengan turns ekstraksi fasa pepejal mod bercampur iaitu amina kuaterner dan aminopropil. Racun perosak ditentukan dengan kromatografi gas yang dilengkapkan dengan pengesan fotometrik nyala. Pengembalian 9 racun perosak untuk tigajenis sayur-sayuran iaitu lobak merah, timun dan sawi hijau pada aras 0.5 mg/kg adalah di antara 80.3% dan 115.0%. Pengembalian yang rendah telah diperoleh untuk methamidophos dan dimethoate. Keputusan ini dibandingkan dengan kaedah yang digunakan pada masa ini iaitu tanpa menggunakan pembersihan. ABSTRACf A simple and rapid gas chromatography method has been developed for simultaneous determination of organophosphorus pesticides in vegetables. Residues are extracted with acetone and dichloromethane. Extracts are cleaned up...
During the last century, a great deal of research and development as well as application has been... more During the last century, a great deal of research and development as well as application has been devoted to pollution control advance technologies for treatment and management of both solid and liquid waste generated from palm oil mills. The major reason for such huge efforts is that waste generated from palm oil mills have been declared as one of the major source of environmental pollution. Although palm oil mills generate both solid and liquid wastes, but according to this review, palm oil mill effluent (POME) has been singled out by the operators as the most expensive and difficult waste to manage. This paper aims to present the potentials of POME as a resource that can contribute to world economic and sustainable development. The emergent of the new biotechnological advances and POME treatment technologies like POMETHANE (an anaerobic thermophilic digestion process which maximizes the yield of biogas production) has changed the status of POME from waste to resource. Use of curr...
Abstract: During the last century, a great deal of research and development as well as applicatio... more Abstract: During the last century, a great deal of research and development as well as application has been devoted to pollution control advance technologies for treatment and management of both solid and liquid waste generated from palm oil mills. The major reason for such huge efforts is that waste generated from palm oil mills have been declared as one of the major source of environmental pollution. Although palm oil mills generate both solid and liquid wastes, but according to this review, palm oil mill effluent (POME) has been singled out by the operators as the most expensive and difficult waste to manage. This paper aims to present the potentials of POME as a resource that can contribute to world economic and sustainable development. The emergent of the new biotechnological advances and POME treatment technologies like POMETHANE (an anaerobic thermophilic digestion process which maximizes the yield of biogas production) has changed the status of POME from waste to resource. U...
A study was carried out to compare the cleanup procedures for the determination of organophosphor... more A study was carried out to compare the cleanup procedures for the determination of organophosphorus pesticides in vegetables. Eleven organophosphorus pesticides were extracted with acetone and methylene chloride. Extracts were cleanup by solid-phase extraction (SPE) mixed-mode column using quaternary amine and aminopropyl (SAX/NH2) or octadecyl (C18) sorbents. The pesticides were determined by gas chromatography with flame photometric detector. The recovery results obtained from the SPE SAX/NH2 and C18 cleanups in carrot, cucumber and green mustard samples were in the range of 71.0 % to 115 %. Lower recoveries were obtained for polar pesticides, methamidophos and dimethoate. These results were compared to the method currently used in the laboratory which does not include any cleanup.
Many palm oil mills in Malaysia still discharged either partially treated or raw palm oil mill ef... more Many palm oil mills in Malaysia still discharged either partially treated or raw palm oil mill effluent (POME) into nearby rivers. Either partially treated or untreated POME depletes a water body of its oxygen and suffocates aquatic life. Vast amounts of biogas are also generated during anaerobic digestion of POME. This paper presented the key findings from the survey mailed to 86 palm oil mills located in Sarawak and Sabah. The survey results provide an overview of the position of the palm oil mills operators on current advance POME treatment technology (PTT) in relation to achieving zero discharge concepts. The survey attempted to identify the key issues about the PTT in respect to feasibility of zero discharge concepts in palm oil mills. The results shows that, although palm oil mills generate a lot of different types of wastes during processing of Fresh Fruit Bunches, according to the operators and available literature, POME is the most difficult waste to manage. The results als...
Bioconversion of palm oil mill effluent (POME) to generate methane gas via anaerobic dige... more Bioconversion of palm oil mill effluent (POME) to generate methane gas via anaerobic digestion involves a consortium of microbes which are responsible in several steps of the biodegradation process. In this study, the microbial community from a selected POME was characterised via molecular techniques and through culture-based plating in order to determine their composition, and subsequently understand their function in the anaerobic community. Genomic DNA of the microbial community was extracted using direct extraction technique, followed by PCR targeting the 16S rDNA region. Distinct fragments of approximately 1100 bp in sizes were successfully amplified using PCR and cloned onto Escherichia coli XL-1 Blue. Upon sequencing of the fragments, BLAST queries identified the bacteria as Thermoanaerobacterium sp. In addition, two other bacterial species were successfully isolated from the POME by culturing on DVS agar...
In Malaysia, abundant coal resources were found in Sarawak and Sabah. The utilization of coal res... more In Malaysia, abundant coal resources were found in Sarawak and Sabah. The utilization of coal resources, to date, is emphasized on the energy productions. The non-energy utilization as soil conditioner is unexplored. Therefore, this study attempted to characterize the coal humic acids extracted from Mukah coal and to evaluate its properties as soil conditioner. The coal humic acids from the regenerated sample were also assessed. The results revealed that different extractants, concentrations, mesh size and temperature influenced the properties of humic acids. The extraction with KOH at 0.5 M produced humic acids with low ash content and high acidic functional groups, which are substantial as soil conditioner. However, the essential yield was low (20%). Regeneration of coal sample with 10% nitric acids improved the yield to an average of 83.45%. The acidic functional groups of nitrohumic acids were improved with the ash content remained at a low level. The UV-VIS study revealed no si...
This paper reports the experience of activity based learning conducted in Chemistry Carnival 2011... more This paper reports the experience of activity based learning conducted in Chemistry Carnival 2011 in Sarawak. The active learning oriented activities include hands-on experiments, quiz, poster and mini lectures were used to educate the school students some basics chemistry relating to daily life. Approximately 300 students attended the activities. Observations and questionnaires were used as the instruments to describe and measure the learning experience whether various activities have contributed to effective learning. Among these, hands-on experiments were found to be the most effective approach; more than 86% of the participants agree that they have learnt well from this peer mentoring and collaborative learning strategy. Posters, mini lectures and quiz however were relatively less favoured as they suffered some inherited shortcomings for example lecture is lacking in interactivity, poster and quiz similarly fall short in proactive involvement of participants. Activity based lear...
Humic acid (HA), known as the black gold of agriculture, is increasingly becoming popular for use... more Humic acid (HA), known as the black gold of agriculture, is increasingly becoming popular for use in agriculture. HA from sub-bituminous coals from Mukah, Sarawak, commercial HA product (leonardite), humified peat and various types of compost were extracted and their chemical characteristics compared. HA yield from various coals ranged from 1.5–11.1% while composts yielded HA from a low of 4.2% to 16.5%. Humified peat and commercial leonardite contained 31.6% and 58.5 % HA respectively. Functional group analyses of extracted HA from Mukah coals showed a narrow range of carboxylic group from 3.2–3.5 meq g–1 while phenol-OH group was between 6.8–7.3 meq g–1. Functional groups in HA from composts were, however, lower than those obtained from coals. The total acidity of HA from composts ranged from 5.6–9.5 meq g–1, carboxylic group at 1.9–3.5 meq g–1 and phenol-OH group, 3.5–6.2 meq g–1. Fourier Transformed Infrared (FTIR) spectra of extracted HA from coals, leonardite and chrysanthemum...
Malaysia is faced with daunting challenges relating to household waste segregation. Due to an inc... more Malaysia is faced with daunting challenges relating to household waste segregation. Due to an increase in population, economic growth, enforcement, infrastructure, public attitude, awareness and participation among others, source segregation is considered a crucial issue in Malaysia, particularly in urban settings. This paper presents the key findings of the quantitative (questionnaire) survey administered among 235 households in Kuching South City and qualitative (interview) survey with the Natural Resource & Environmental Board (NREB) and Kuching South City Council. This survey attempts to identify the limiting and motivating factors on the part of households to waste segregation. The result shows that age, sex, race and education is insignificant towards waste segregation. The result also shows a significant difference between waste segregators and non-waste separators on their level of perception towards implementation of laws for source segregation. Result also shows that the e...
A simple and rapid method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of five pyrethroi... more A simple and rapid method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of five pyrethroid pesticides in vegetables. Residues were extracted with acetone and methylene chloride. Extracts were cleaned up by solid-phase extraction mixed-mode column using quaternary amine and aminopropyl sorbents. The pesticides were determined by gas chromatography with electron capture detector. The recoveries from three vegetables: carrot, cucumber and green mustard, spiked at 0.25-0.5 mg/kg were 72.0 to 117.0%. The results were comparable to those obtained by the silica gel cleanup method.
Palm oil mill effluent (POME) contains a high amount of nutrients and organic matter; therefore, ... more Palm oil mill effluent (POME) contains a high amount of nutrients and organic matter; therefore, it has been considered as an alternative liquid fertilizer (LF). However, the studies on the reuse of POME as fertilizer have been mostly limited to nutrients absorption but the leachates were neglected. Such approach caused potential impacts on ground water pollution. Thus, this research aimed to compare the leachabilities of ammoniacal nitrogen (NH3-N) and phosphate (PO43-), as well as the growth rates of oil palm seedlings in three different watering conditions. Six oil palm seedlings were watered with either POME, LF or tap water. The leachates from each seedling pot were collected weekly and analyzed for their NH3-N and PO43- concentrations. The pots which were watered with tap water showed the highest leaching rate of 0.0251 mg.L-1.week-1 for NH3-N and 0.0392 mg.L-1.week-1 for PO43-. The average concentrations of NH3-N in the leachates from the POME, LF and tap water potswere 0.45,...
Photocatalysis, electrolysis and Fenton process are three important advanced oxidation processes ... more Photocatalysis, electrolysis and Fenton process are three important advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) which produce hydroxyl radical in order to degrade organic matter in wastewater within 4-6 hours under ambient conditions. A photocatalysis, electrolysis and Fenton (photo-electro-Fenton) process hybrid system has been carried out to treat the diluted palm oil mill effluent (POME) in this study. An electrolytic cell was set up with a stainless steel anode and a platinum wire cathode with the applied cell voltage of 1.5 V. The diluted POME was then treated in the cell with the mixture of titanium oxide as the photocatalyst, sodium sulfate solution as the electrolyte, hydrogen peroxide and iron sulfate as the Fenton reagents. The effects on the duration, pH, concentration of TiO2 and different light conditions on the removal efficiency of the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the diluted POME were studied. The optimal conditions for the photo-electro-Fenton hybrid system were found to...
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