Mahadhir Mohamed

• PhD (Chemical Engineering)
• Senior Lecturer at University of Technology Malaysia

The fibrous silica HZSM-5 (HFZ) was synthesized by microemulsion method assisted with ZSM-5 seed crystallization under different amounts of a silica source, tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS, 1.0–1.5 mol) for superior benzene methylation activity. The aptness of the physicochemical properties of HFZ offered an abundance of active sites, allow benzene...

Optimization of the sonication-assisted synthesis of magnetic Moringa oleifera (MMO) was carried out, to produce an efficient coagulant for palm oil mill effluent treatment. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to analyse the effect of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) composition, sonication time and sonication temperature on coagulation perfor...

High chemical oxygen demand (COD) in palm oil mill effluent (POME) caused destruction of aquatic ecosystem and a proper solution is required. In this study, synthetic magnetic nanoparticles and protein extracted from Moringa oleifera seed were used for the synthesis of magnetic Moringa oleifera (MMO) for the removal of COD in POME. The performance...

There is an increasing concern over the production of huge volume of toxic sludge from the usage of inorganic conventional coagulant (alum) specifically for the treatment of palm oil mill effluent (POME). As such, there have been many research on greener coagulant in order to tackle the issue. In this study, Moringa oleifera extracted from salt (MO...

Fibrous silica BEA zeolite (FBEA) was synthesized by microemulsion method and tested for benzene methylation. The FESEM and N2 physisorption verified that the FBEA exhibited a dendrimeric silica fiber morphology with large surface area and high ratio of mesopores and micropore volume. While the FTIR pre-adsorbed pyridine revealed that the FBEA poss...

Benzene methylation is an important process for removing excess benzene in petrochemical industries to produce value-added products such as toluene and xylene. In this study, the performance of three types of zeolites, which is ZSM-5 (HZ), zeolite Y (HY) and zeolite β (Hβ) were investigated as catalyst in the benzene methylation reaction. The catal...

Fibrous silica titania (FST) was synthesized via hydrothermal method and evaluated on photodegradation of methylene blue (MB). The catalyst was characterized using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-Vis DRS) and N 2 adsorption–...

Fabrication of reducible titanium dioxide (TiO2) loaded with nickel (Ni) to maximize metal-support interaction for stimulating hydrogen (H2) production via phenol steam reforming (PSR) has been investigated. Catalysts, synthesized by sol-gel assisted impregnation method, were characterized by XRD, SEM, EDX, BET, H2-TPR and TEM techniques. The effec...

Fibrous silica-titania (FST) catalysts were synthesized by microemulsion followed by silica seed-crystal crystallization methods under various molar ratios of toluene to water (T/W). The catalysts were characterized by XRD, UV-DRS, FESEM, TEM, AFM, N2 adsorption-desorption, FTIR, and ESR. The results revealed that altering the T/W ratio affected th...

Fibrous silica ZSM-5 (FSZ) was synthesized by a microemulsion method, and subsequent incorporation of 5 wt% of TiO2 onto it via electrolysis in varying concentrations of supporting electrolyte tetraethylammonium perchlorate (TEAP) gave TFSZ catalysts. The results verified that the degree of desilication and dealumination, for increasing the inserti...

Silica-doped tetragonal mesoporous zirconia nanoparticles, SiO2/ZrO2 (SZ), were successfully prepared by a simple microwave-assisted method, and the subsequent incorporation of copper (1–10 wt%) via an electrochemical method gave CuO/SiO2/ZrO2 (CSZ) catalysts. The SiO2 stabilized the ZrO2 completely in the tetragonal phase, but that the added coppe...

Highly reactive visible-light-driven flower-like rutile-phase titanium nanoparticle (FTN) catalysts were prepared using a simple template-free hydrothermal method with different concentrations of hydrochloric acid (2 M–4M). The physicochemical properties of the catalysts were characterized via XRD, FESEM, FTIR, UV-DRS, N2 adsorption-desorption, and...

Mesoporous silica KCC-1 was successfully synthesized by microemulsion system coupled with microwave-assisted hydrothermal method. Mesoporous silica KCC-1 exhibited spherical morphology surrounded with dendritic fiber with the particle size of 200–400 nm and BET surface area of 773 m²/g. Mesoporous silica KCC-1 has significantly higher number of bas...

Graphical abstract Abstract Hydrogen gas production via glycerol steam reforming using nickel (Ni) loaded zeolite (HZSM-5) catalyst was focused on this research. 15 wt % Ni(HZSM-5) catalyst loading has been investigated based on the parameter of different range of catalyst weight (0.3-0.5g) and glycerol flow rate (0.2-0.4mL/min) at 600 ºC and atmos...

Glycerol is the main by-product of biodiesel production that produces from transesterification process. In this research, focused was on hydrogen production via glycerol steam reforming using nickel loaded HZSM-5 catalyst. The catalysts were prepared by using different loading amount of nickel (0.5, 1.0, 5.0, 10.0 and 15 wt %) on HZSM-5 catalyst th...

Glycerol is the main by-product of biodiesel production that produces from transesterification process. In this research, focused was on hydrogen production via glycerol steam reforming using nickel loaded HZSM-5 catalyst. The catalysts were prepared by using different loading amount of nickel (0.5, 1.0, 5.0, 10.0 and 15 wt %) on HZSM-5 catalyst th...

The study focuses on hydrogen production via glycerol steam reforming over copper and nickel loaded on HZSM-5 zeolite based catalyst. The catalysts were prepared by using different loading amount of copper (0-10wt%) and nickel (0-10wt%) on HZSM-5 zeolite catalysts through wet impregnation method and was characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). The...

Biodiesel derived from vegetable oils is renewable and environmentally friendly than those of petroleum diesel. Currently most of the biodiesel is produced using homogeneous catalysts which are corrosive and non-reusable, leading to an increased cost and causing environmental problems. Alternatively, heterogeneous catalysts are being considered ove...

Glycerol is the main by-product of biodiesel production and during the trans-esterification reaction, about 10 wt % of glycerol is produced. In this study, different amount of Ni was loaded on HZSM-5 and tested for the conversion of glycerol to hydrogen. The studies were also conducted at different reactor temperature of 450, 500, 550, 600 and 650°...

The reduction of oil resources and increasing petroleum price has led to the search for alternative fuel from renewable resources such as biodiesel. Currently biodiesel is produced from vegetable oil using liquid catalysts. Replacement of liquid catalysts with solid catalysts would greatly solve the problems associated with expensive separation met...

The direct conversion of methane to higher hydrocarbons either over metal catalyst or zeolite has not been successful so far in achieving the methane conversion with higher hydrocarbons selectivity within the economic range due to oxidation of the product. The present research aims at improving the performance of BZSM-5 catalyst with the addition o...

While the production of biodiesel increased, significant amounts of glycerol, a byproduct that will become abundant if large scale bio-diesel production is implemented. The glycerol byproduct amount to about 10 wt% of the total biodiesel produced. Rather than consider the crude glycerol as a waste as a result of the increased amount of glycerol byp...

Currently, semi-refined and refined vegetable oils are used as a feedstock in biodiesel production. However, due to competition with conventional fossil fuel, economic reasons, shortage supply of food and its social impact on the global scale has somewhat slowed the development of biodiesel industry. Studies have been conducted to recover oil from...

Lignin peroxidase (LiP) and manganese peroxidase (MnP) enzymes were used to pre-treat empty fruit bunch (EPFB) before pyrolysis. Statistical analysis indicated that at 71.6%, LiP demonstrated greater lignin degradation compared to 67.9% MnP. Interestingly, the pretreatment sample has resulted in higher bio-oil yield compared to the untreated sample...

A two-step biodiesel production from Waste Cooking Oil (WCO) has been optimized. Pre-treatment with ferric sulphate in acid catalysed esterification process preceded transesterification in order to reduce the free fatty acid level in WCO. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between reaction temperatures, reaction time an...