Agricultural, veterinary and food sciences

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http://openscience.utm.my/handle/123456789/32

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Factors effecting the acoustic properties of date palm fiber
(Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2015) Abd. AlRahman Jawad, Lamyaa
This research focuses on factors that affect the acoustic performance of a porous material, namely date palm fiber (DPF). Natural DPF is chosen as a potential replacement to synthetic fibers which raise a lot of health concerns. DPF is considered as abundant material which can be obtained cheaply and easily, particularly in the Middle East region. Analytical approaches, namely Delany- Bazley, Biot-Allard and Johnson-Allard were used to estimate the acoustical performance of DPF with previously tested natural fiber. All of the analytical values were then validated with the experimental results. Two types of tests, namely acoustic absorption coefficient (AAC) and sound transmission loss (STL) were undertaken to investigate the acoustical performance of the DPF. A series of tests were undertaken to evaluate the parameters that influence the acoustical performance of the samples. These include tests on the sample of DPF panel treated with latex; sample treated with Urea Formaldehyde as well as samples backed with porous material such as woven cotton cloth and polyester. The findings showed that the AAC of DPF improved with the increase in thickness and density. It was also found that there were improvements on the AAC for sample panels backed with porous materials, particularly at low frequency ranging from 90 Hz to 1.6 kHz. In addition, the STL of DPF panels treated with Urea Formaldehyde produced higher acoustic insulation (in the range of 30 dB) due to the increase in panel stiffness. In short, the results showed that acoustical performance of the DPF is slightly less than synthetic fibers, but better than other previously tested natural fibers. This is mainly due to the smaller diameter of DPF as compared to other natural fiber counterparts. The good acoustical performance of DPF suggests that it has a very good potential to replace the currently used synthetic fibers for acoustical treatment application
Development of aerobic granules in sequencing batch reactor system for treating high temperature domestic wastewater
(Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2018) Ab. Halim, Mohd. Hakim
Research on aerobic granular sludge (AGS) technology using sequencing batch reactor (SBR) system known as AGS-SBR has generally been conducted at ambient temperature or lower. Even though some studies on AGS have been performed at high temperature, detailed knowledge regarding the influence of high temperature on aerobic granulation is still confined. The main aim of this study is to investigate the possibility of developing AGS technology with special emphasis on high temperature condition for the application of domestic wastewater treatment in hot climate areas such as Saudi Arabia. In this study, two parts of experimental work were involved. The first part involved operation of a 3-litre lab-scale SBR to cultivate granules at different high temperatures (30, 40 and 50°C) with the use of synthetic wastewater and influent loading rate of 1.6 COD g (L.d)–1. The COD/N ratio of the influent wastewater was 8. Meanwhile, the second part involved operation of a 4-litre lab-scale SBR to cultivate granules fed with domestic wastewater and influent loading rate of 0.6 COD g (L.d)–1 at high temperature (50°C). The SBR system was operated in a complete cycle time of 3 hours. The first part of experiment reveals that granules with the highest average diameter of 3.36 mm was cultivated at 50°C with excellent chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency of 98.17 %. The SVI value of biomass in the SBR run at the temperature of 30, 40 and 50°C were 63.21, 47.40 and 24.50 mL g–1, respectively indicating good settleability of the granules. The aerobic granules cultivated at different high temperatures also positively correlated with the accumulation of elements including carbon, oxygen, phosphorus, silicon, iron, aluminium, calcium and magnesium that played important roles in the granulation process. In the meantime, the second part of experiment shows that stable mature granules were cultivated in the SBR with diameters between 2.0 – 5.0 mm. At the end of experiment, COD and ammoniacal nitrogen removals and phosphorus were achieved at a maximum of 84.4 %, 99.6 % and 81.7 %, respectively. Based on the results of this study, AGS was successfully developed in the SBR fed with both synthetic and real domestic wastewater at temperatures that varied from 30 to 50°C indicating that the granulation process is achievable at high temperatures. Therefore, this represents the practical of AGS technology as one of the alternatives in wastewater treatment system for hot climate areas such as Saudi Arabia.
Silica removal from rice straw for animal feed application
(Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2017) Abd. Talib, Norfahana
The large production of rice straw (731 ton/season) could eventually lead to uncontrolled air pollution due to open burning activity. Although rice straw has been used as animal feed since in the 1980s, it has failed to provide sufficient amount of protein for daily ruminant growth (about 15-20%). Hence, this study explored the use of rice straw waste for animal feed that can provide the amount of protein needed for daily ruminant growth. Moreover, as silica has been discovered as the main hurdle in animal feed processing, the rice straw sample was treated with alkaline hydrogen peroxide (AHP) via batch and continuous systems. Besides reducing the silica content, it is also aimed to maximize the protein content of the treated rice straw. Meanwhile, in the continuous system, a single column packed bed with up-flow system was adapted before carrying out further biological treatment with the fungi, Neurospora sitophila for cell protein production. Other than that, physical and chemical characterizations of rice straw sample (obtained from Seberang Perak, Malaysia) were conducted before and after pretreatment processes to determine the effectiveness after each pretreatment process. From the results obtained, a kinetic study was carried out to investigate the removal behavior for each system. From the characterization analysis, the rice straw sample was found to contain a high level of silica (20%) and lignin (20%), but very low-level protein content (6-7%). Besides, the batch process of pretreatment with AHP, as well as the effects of different parameters (i.e. AHP concentrations, particle sizes of rice straw, and temperature) had been studied. From the batch process, the optimum condition obtained was at 60°C with application of 10% of AHP solution for sample with < 0.5mm particle size. At this condition, more than 83.8% of silica removal, 80% of delignification, and 7.88% of reduced sugar production were achieved. On the other hand, as for the continuous AHP pretreatment process, and followed by biotreatment of Neurospora sitophila (edible fungus) in the single column, it was found that 84% of silica was removed with 80% of delignification and 8% of reduced sugar production with 10% AHP solution in a 7cm treated and compacted rice straw bed at room temperature. Furthermore, the protein content in the pretreated rice straw increased by a whopping 80%. Meanwhile, the kinetic study revealed that both the batch and the continuous silica removal processes were highly influenced by mass transfer, in comparison to the other steps. Hence, it can be concluded that this study has depicted that the selected processes for silica removal and protein enhancement of local rice straw are indeed suitable for animal feed production. Additionally, the kinetic study has been proven beneficial in understanding the attributes of the removal process
Optimal design and synthesis of rice supply chain
(Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2013) Lim, Jeng Shiun
Continuous rise in energy cost and increased competitiveness have motivated rice enterprises to find new ways to improve productivity, reduce resource consumption, minimise waste generation, and ultimately, raise profitability. Consequently, there has been extensive research and development works in the conversion of the by-products from rice mills into value-added products. However, most of the works on the improvement of the rice mill and its downstream processes have been carried out in the piece-meal manner. There is a clear need for a systematic framework to optimise and improve the existing rice mill and its value-added processes in an integrated, resource-efficient way. The new framework developed in this thesis includes four key components as described below. Component 1: A new cost-screening framework that is known as the resource-efficient screening (RES) method to screen the rice value chain and select the products and technologies targeted to maximise profit. Component 2: The framework for an integrated, resource-efficient (IRE) rice mill complex to synthesise the processes by evaluating the trade-off between the product revenue, capital investment and utility consumption. The model also considers the seasonality and degradation of rice resources with time. Component 3: A new framework called the integrated, resource-efficient (MSIRE) framework has also been developed for the rice enterprise that operates a cluster of rice mills at different locations. The MSIRE framework is used to determine the product portfolio for each rice mill, the location of the cogeneration system and its optimal scale, whether to expand the current processing facility or to build a new facility and the configuration of the paddy and rice husk logistic network. Component 4: A framework that combines the optimal logistic network of rice husk, with the rice mill’s utility supply network has also been developed. These frameworks were successfully implemented on several case studies involving different scenarios of a national rice enterprise, and produced significant improvement in the enterprise’s profitability
Optimizing pigment production from agricultural waste using metaheuristic-based algorithms
(Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2022) Suhaimi, Siti Nurulasilah
Due to the uncontrolled industrial applications of synthetic pigments that can cause a serious hazard to human health and the environment, the scientific community skewed towards natural colors. The simplest and efficient method to increase pigment production is by manipulating the medium. Among classical and statistical methods, one factor at a time and response surface methodology (RSM) is the most widely used in medium optimization. However, the main drawback of these methods is tedious wet experiments need to be conducted to predict the output for a new input data and prior to data processing and analytic for decision making. In the past few years, the rapid advances in the field of metaheuristic optimization algorithm have provided a solution in optimization problems. In this study, metaheuristic optimization scheme, together with the mathematical model which is regression analysis have been implemented to minimize time and cost of wet-lab experiments by increasing the pigment productions using the proposed compact experiments. Moreover, the predictive optimization performance and sensitivity analysis of metaheuristic algorithm have been evaluated to validate the results, and the authenticity has been proven by wet laboratory experiments. Analysis of the optimization showed that the percentage improvement for the proposed compact experiment which is particle swarm optimization (PSO) model improved from RSM model by 1.32%, while the percentage improvement for all compact experiments was better than multiple polynomial model (MPR) model with the highest PSO percentage of 2.0507%. Hence, the experimental findings revealed that, the metaheuristic-based approach successfully predicted the optimum fermentation parameters condition and concentration with better achievement on pigment production by using proposed compact experiment.

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