Nur Izyan Wan Azelee

University of Technology Malaysia | UTM · Department of Bioprocess Engineering

Plastic waste, particularly polythene, is a major environmental concern, with bioremediation emerging as a sustainable solution. This study evaluated the potential of Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus oryzae in degrading low-density polyethylene (LDPE). Fungal species were initially cultivated on potato dextrose agar (PDA) plates at 36°C for 5 days...

The increasing presence of emerging contaminants in water resources poses a significant threat to human health and the environment. Numerous biological systems have been employed for addressing the emerging contaminants however, the efficacy and cost effectiveness of the systems remained intricate. The most recent trend in wastewater treatment is u...

Enzyme immobilization has been extensively explored by chemical/biochemical/ biotechnology personnel for research and industrial uses. The ability to improve the stability and reusability of enzymes has driven this technique to be employed in a plethora of applications in these recent decades. Enzyme Immobilization for Bioprocessing offers up-t...

The increasing discharge of industrial wastewater contaminated with hazardous pollutants requires innovative and efficient treatment technologies. This review addresses the potential of fixed-bed adsorption systems for the effective removal of a wide spectrum of contaminants from industrial effluent. It explains the basic principles, characteristic...

Plastic-based materials are the most commonly used materials for packaging since ages ago. Due to the environmental concern, revolution has been made to substitute plastic materials with a more sustainable and eco-friendly material. The long-term negative health effects imparted to human from ingestion of microplastic have strengthened the need to...

Catalyst development is one of the most challenging aspects in biodiesel production due to the compatibility issue with the feedstocks and catalyst poisoning upon exposure to process conditions. In the present research, chemoenzymatic catalyst was prepared by impregnation of magnesium aluminate (MA) on alumina support, modifying the support using a...

Plant-based extract is an important source of bioactive compounds, mainly secondary metabolites including phenolic compounds responsible for various functional bioactivities including antioxidant, anti-melanogenic, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer. The application of plant-based extract is commonly found in the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical sec...

The use of natural-based ingredients for nutricosmetics, boasting remarkable phytochemical compounds and antioxidant properties sourced from underutilized fruits, has also gained widespread recognition. The present study was conducted to preserve Averrhoa bilimbi using emerging technology of freeze drying. Low moisture food ingredient in powder for...

Given its extended earthly persistence and detrimental effects on ecosystems, plastic waste disposal is one of the most concerning problems in the waste management industry. Plastics, which are strong, durable, and lightweight, have a big impact on society all over the world. Most of the waste is dumped, and only 7% of it is recycled. Plastic poses...

Green and blue biotechnology has become the focus area in cosmetic industries. Cosmetic products derived from marine- and plant-based ingredients have huge market demand as they represent alternatives to chemical-based ingredients which may result in adverse side effects, especially for those with sensitive skin. Marine- and plant-based collagen fo...

The choice of cosmetics by consumers affects their satisfaction and self-confidence, highlighting the value of specific products. Although the cosmetics market is quickly expanding thanks to consumerism and technical improvements, it is important to comprehend how cosmetics impact customers’ general wellbeing. As consumers seek natural alternatives...

The global cosmetics market by region tends to increase from 2022 until 2029 to account for USD 377,243.22 million by 2029 (Data bridge market research market analysis study 2022). It is indicated that there is a big revenue in this sector in which the new products continuously developed and hit the market. Therefore, the development and innovat...

Transportation remains one of the largest contributors to global carbon dioxide emissions with the majority of vehicles using fossil-based fuels such as gasoline and diesel. Therefore, alternatives that come from a renewable feedstock and create fewer carbon emissions are urgently needed. Biodiesel, an alternative to fossil-based diesel fuel, can b...

STEM education is important for protecting the environment. However, efforts to educate industries on environmental protection should be made to ensure sustainable practices within those industries. This study aims to report on efforts made to educate an industry on environmental protection using the case of wastewater treatment technology through...

The oyster mushroom (Pleurotus spp.) is one of the most widely cultivated mushroom species globally. The present study investigated the effect of synbiotics on the growth and quality of Pleurotus ostreatus and Pleurotus pulmonarius. Different synbiotics formulations were applied by spraying mushroom samples daily and measuring their growth paramete...

Mushroom cultivation is currently being widely ventured by farmers in Malaysia due to its high profits in a short time and low production cost. Mushrooms can be grown on various substrates such as rice husk and stalks, coconut fiber, and sawdust. This study was performed to find out the ability of using pineapple leaves waste as a substrate for the...

Electronic waste (e-waste) management has become a significant challenge in recent years due to the increasing consumption of electronic devices and their improper disposal. Effective e-waste management requires a comprehensive approach that considers the environmental, economic, and social impacts of e-waste. This comprehensive review provides a c...

Biodegradation of cellulose, lignin, and hemicellulose from oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) by straw mushroom ( Volvariella volvacea ) was investigated. The present research mainly focused on the effects of effective microorganism (EM) treatment (M) and composting duration of OPEFB (C) on straw mushroom production. Two main stages were involve...

The increasing rise of hazardous dye (toxic and carcinogenic) in wastewater produced by multiple industries continues to become major threats to human health and environment, providing a big problem for conventional water treatment facilities to tackle this issue. Based on their appearance and physical characteristics, dyes are classified into diff...

An edible bird nest is a product of the solidified saliva secretion from a few different swiftlet’s species, during the breeding season. But the high impurities in A. maximus and C. esculent nests make them less ideal to be consumed. Eggshells and guano are the major contaminants contributing to the nitrite and nitrates contents. However, recent st...

Purpose of Review Pollution from wastewater is a perpetual environmental issue worldwide that negatively impacts the ecosystem and human beings. The use of natural-based compounds such as cyclodextrin (CD) to remove pollutants from water and wastewater systems has been reported by various researchers. Nevertheless, its direct use in wastewater tre...

Remazol Brilliant Blue dye (RBB) is a harmful dye from the textile industry that can damage the environment and aquatic life. Since RBB is impossible to degrade in water by primary and secondary wastewater treatment, its removal is a challenge. An excellent treatment procedure is urgently anticipated to avoid the pollution spreading into the enviro...

The unscientific disposal of the most abundant crustacean wastes, especially those derived from marine sources, affects both the economy and the environment. Strategic waste collection and management are in need of the hour. Sustainable valorization approaches are played a crucial role in solving those issues as well as generating wealth from waste...

With the quick commercial expansion, demand for cosmetics made with natural materials has been rising steadily over time. A potential replacement that is substantially safer than the chemical ingredients would be a deep-sea water (DSW) based cosmetic that mostly consists of organic and biomaterial elements. This research attempts to demonstrate tha...

Cyclodextrin (CD) is an important substance for chemical, pharmaceutical, and food industries. Conventionally, free Escherichia coli ( E. coli ) cells expressing recombinant cyclodextrin glucanotransferase (CGTase) are used as the biocatalyst for CD production, but the process struggles with low CGTase excretion and CD yield. In this study, E. coli...

Extraction and fractionation of hemicellulose from complex lignocellulosic biomass are crucial steps to acquiring purified hemicellulose that can probably used in biofuel and biochemical sectors. Yet, several challenges have impeded for obtaining the hemicellulose fraction as it involves the complexity of extracting and fractioning hemicellulose. I...

Employing aerobic fermentation, Gram-negative bacteria belonging to the genus Xanthomonas produce the high molecular weight natural heteropolysaccharide known as xanthan. It has various amounts of O-acetyl and pyruvyl residues together with D-glucosyl, D-mannosyl, and D-glucuronyl acid residues in a molar ratio of 2:2:1. The unique structure of xan...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are considered a major class of organic contaminants or pollutants, which are poisonous, mutagenic, genotoxic, and/or carcinogenic. Due to their ubiquitous occurrence and recalcitrance, PAHs-related pollution possesses significant public health and environmental concerns. Increasing the understanding of PAHs'...

Cosmetics made from natural ingredients are increasingly popular because they contain bioactive com- pounds which can provide many health benefits, more environmentally friendly and sustainable. The health benefits obtained from natural-based ingredients include anti-aging, photoprotective, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory. This article reviewed...

Biodiesel is an alternative to fossil-derived diesel with similar properties and several environmental benefits. Biodiesel production using conventional catalysts such as homogeneous, heterogeneous, or enzymatic catalysts faces a problem regarding catalysts deactivation after repeated reaction cycles. Heterogeneous nanocatalysts and nanobiocatalyst...

Despite formaldehyde's high toxicity, it has widespread demand worldwide due to its applications in the synthesis of a plethora of important chemicals like urea-formaldehyde, paraformaldehyde, polyacetal, and biological reagents amongst others. Currently, silver and iron molybdenum oxide catalysts are mostly utilized industrially due to their excel...

Fatty acids in wastewater contribute to high chemical oxygen demand. The use of cellulose nanofiber (CNF) to adsorb the fatty acids is limited by its strong internal hydrogen bonding. This study aims to functionalize CNF with β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) and elucidate the adsorption behaviour which is yet to be explored. β-CD functionalized CNF (CNF/β-CD)...

Studies have shown that many university graduates have problems in generic skills such as communication and problem solving. To tackle the issue, a course called Graduate Success Attributes (GSA) is introduce by a public university in Malaysia as a general course. Nonetheless, there were questions regarding students’ acceptance to the course becaus...

Proteins and peptides have been used in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and food applications for their therapeutic and nutritional properties. However, administration of these molecules to the human body is challenging due to their low stability, low bioavailability, high biodegradability, immunogenicity, and inefficient permeability. These molecul...

Plastics play an essential role in every area of the economy across the world due to their widespread usage in agriculture, architecture and construction, health, and consumer products. They are the foundation of many businesses since they are utilized in the production of a variety of commodities such as defense materials, sanitary wares, tiles, p...

Enzyme immobilization on inorganic materials is gaining more attention with the potential characteristics of high-surface-area-to-volume ratios, increasing the efficiency of enzyme loading on the support. Metal oxide hybrid support was prepared by a wetness impregnation of five metal precursors, including CaO, CuO, MgO, NiO, and ZnO, on Al2O3 and u...

Cascade pretreatment of low-pressure steam heating (LPSH) and maleic acid (MA) on pineapple waste (PW) biomass aims to improve delignification, increase enzyme accessibility to carbohydrate in the feedstock while reducing inhibitor by-products. The best conditions for LPSH pretreatment were determined using one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) while the con...

The transformation of agricultural wastes such as pineapple waste into valuable product such as biochar will be of great advantage. Biochar is a black carbon produced by pyrolysis which can act as good adsorbent for organic substances due to the high porosity characteristic. Due to the instability and the non-recyclability factor of free enzymes, t...

Renewable, natural and biocompatible characteristic of lignin portray a huge milestone in cosmeceutical applications. The wide availability of lignin which exist in abundance in nature and from low-cost biowaste has put this polymer as one of the highly promising elements to be explored for replacing the common chemical-based ingredients in cosmeti...

The decimation of fossil fuel and rises in environmental issues are induced by the increasing global consumption of fossil fuel. This phenomenon is forecasted to increase gradually and has caught serious attention from researchers and governments around the world to discover and develop a cleaner and greener fuel-like biofuel. Green diesel has been...

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a challenge for the survival of the human race. The steady rise of resistant microorganisms against the common antimicrobials results in increased morbidity and mortality rates. Iodine and a plethora of plant secondary metabolites inhibit microbial proliferation. Antiseptic iodophors and many phytochemicals are una...

One of the most significant and difficult jobs in food sustainability, is to make use of waste in the vegetable and fruit processing sectors. The discarded fruits along with their waste materials, is anticipated to have potential use for further industrial purposes via extraction of functional ingredients, extraction of bioactive components, fermen...

Oil spillage is one of the most common pollutants which brings greater economic loss and damage to the environment. The intensity and amount of the damage may vary depending on factors such as the type of oil, the location of the spill, and the climatic parameters in the area. As for any pollution management, the guidelines are Reduce, Re-use, Reco...

This study uses a cost effective and efficient method for production of higher DP (degree of polymerization) Xylooligosaccharides (XOS) from xylan extracted from the waste walnut shells. Copper based metal organic framework (Cu-BTC MOF) was prepared for immobilization of free xylanase (Xy) enzyme by green synthesis method. Both free and immobilized...

Objective Green synthesis of metallic and metal oxide nanomaterial has received significant importance in various fields. Green synthesis of silver nanoparticles was performed using aqueous extracts of Cissus quadrangularis. Aqueous extracts of plants plays a major role to reduce the silver nitrate to silver nanoparticles and also aid as surface st...

Rare earth elements (REEs) are among the important elements in various high-technological appliances globally. Recently, the recovery of REEs from the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) has gained significant interest for the sustainability of global electrical and electronic industrial markets. The fast evolving and rapid changing of...

Mycelium-based biofoam has the potential to become an alternative to petroleum-polymeric based-foam by utilising fungal mycelium and lignocellulosic material as the matrix and substrate, respectively. The lignocellulosic materials, which were rice husk, sawdust, and sugarcane bagasse, which is crucial for the production of biofoam, were tested as a...

For centuries, enzymes are playing profound roles in food processing and are extensively employed in food manufacturing. Devoted research continues perpetually to analyze enzyme-specific properties including their isolation, purification, and characterization. Advanced developments in the field of enzyme technology have developed new enzymes with w...

The drastic development in agriculture industrialization, which is planned to improve human life quality, has negatively resulted in water and wastewater contamination. The environment could be dangerously threatened if no precautions and prevention are taken. The extensive usage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, primarily in developing count...

The world market has been introduced with cannabis industry since long ago before the start of the Common Era. Since a century ago, this industry has been overwhelmed with controversial legal battles and debates. However, recently, the legitimate cannabis market has been growing rapidly and is highly potential to significantly boost the world's eco...

Oligosaccharide has great prebiotic potential and exert numerous nutritional benefits. Because of that, it can be incorporated into various kind of industry such as pharmaceutical, agroindustry, cosmetic and food sector. Although it can be found naturally in foods, oligosaccharide also can be produced through enzymatic reaction via different mechan...

Worldwide consumption of energy produced from fossil fuel is forecasted to grow. This trend leads to both environmental pollution and the depletion of fossil fuel resources. Green diesel is a suitable candidate to substitute petroleum based-diesel due to its plentiful raw materials, non-polluting production process, and cost-effectiveness. Green di...

Amylase (EC 3.2.1.1) enzyme has gained tremendous demand in various industries, including wastewater treatment, bioremediation and nano-biotechnology. This compels the availability of enzyme in greater yields that can be achieved by employing potential amylase-producing cultures and statistical optimization. The use of Plackett–Burman design (PBD)...

This investigation was aimed to explore antibacterial and antioxidant compounds in Durio zibethinus (Durian) peel/seed extracts and their effectiveness in preventing meat decay. The antioxidant compound from D. zibethinus peel/seed extracts is determined using total phenolic content (TPC) and total phenolic content (TFC). The antibacterial ability...

Mycelium-based biofoam has the potential to become an alternative to petroleum-polymeric based-foam by utilising fungal mycelium and lignocellulosic material as the matrix and substrate, respectively. The lignocellulosic materials, which were rice husk, sawdust, and sugarcane bagasse, which is crucial for the production of biofoam, were tested as a...

Keratin is a durable and fibrous protein of hair, nails, horns, hoofs, feathers and the epithelial cells in the outermost layers of the skin. Keratin in animals mainly presents in vertebrates such as mammals, birds and reptiles including chicken and swiftlet. This study aims to characterize keratin extracted from chicken and swiftlet feathers. The...

Using the above results from RMS analysis the optimum values were predicted for the independent significant variables (Figure 3) the optimized levels of these variables in combination with other media variables the maximum production was predicted to be 199.90 U/mL. The predicted data were validated through confirmatory experiments performed in tri...

Waste cooking oil (WCO) serve as a cheap feedstocks for biodiesel production. However, the high acidity of this oil disqualifies it from using alkaline transesterification as the synthesis reaction for biodiesel production. Thus, the integration of enzymatic and chemical catalysts to form a hybrid catalyst for reducing oil acidity is a new option i...

The peculiarity of spatially restricted diffusion and molecular collision processes results in considerable contrast in a reaction between the reactant and catalyst in the heterogeneous system from its corresponding homogeneous structure. The identification of the enzymatic hydrolysis process of pre-treated kenaf and to convert it into simple sugar...

Most of the base oils used in lubricant formulations are typically derived from mineral oils, which are inherently harmful to the environment. For this reason, the aim of this study was to find an alternative base oil that can be synthesised from a renewable and biodegradable source and, most importantly, that is not a threat to the ecological envi...

This study aimed to explore the antioxidant and antibacterial compounds in P. edulis peels and to identify the effectiveness of P. edulis peels extract on preserved meat. In this research studies, the antioxidant compound from sample extract of P. edulis peel is determined using total flavonoid and total phenolic content respectively. TPC of 7.273...

Cell surface display of xylanase on Escherichia coli was used for the hydrolysis of hemicellulose from pineapple pomace. The feasibility of bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass into xylooligosaccharides (XOS) was investigated. In this study, pineapple pomace was pretreated, and the hemicellulose fraction was obtained for reaction with the whole...