Umi Fazara Md Ali

• B.Eng, M.Eng.Sc(Chemical) (U.Malaya),Ph.D.( Chemical Engineering) (Imperial College London)
• Senior Lecturer at University of Malaysia, Perlis

The discharge of colored effluents from industries is one of the significant sources of water pollution. Therefore, there is a growing demand for efficient and low-cost treatment methods. An adsorption process with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) synthesized using a novel double carbonization and oxidation method from the natural precursor of oil palm...

The catalytic conversion of CO2 via the Reverse Water Gas Shift (RWGS) reaction for CO production is a promising environment-friendly approach. The greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels can be used to produce valuable fuels or chemicals through CO2 hydrogenation. Therefore, this project was to study the CO2 conversion via RWGS over var...

Sargassum sp., a brown alga in the division of macroalgae was evaluated for its ability to synthesis macroalgal-based activated carbon and remove lead (II) ions from synthetic aqueous solution. The sargassum activated carbon (SAC) was prepared by chemical activation impregnated with zinc chloride followed by carbonization. The surface morphology an...

The release of SO2 into the atmosphere is concerning due to its role in acidification, which threatens living organisms and the environment. Adsorption processes using materials like chemically modified activated carbon (AC) have demonstrated strong potential for removing SO2 before its release. This study evaluates the performance of AC derived fr...

The novel coronavirus that caused the epidemic and pandemic resulting in the acute respiratory illness known as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has plagued the world. This is unlike other coronavirus outbreaks that have occurred in the past, such as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). COVID-19 ha...

Microplastics (MP) and nanoplastics (NP) are major aquatic contaminants, raising concerns due to their strong affinity for other toxic substances. Filtration is widely employed for MP and NP removal due to its simplicity, efficiency and variety of available filtration media. In this study, the removal efficiency of MP and NP was investigated using...

This study was conducted to test the effectiveness of biochar rice husk as an alternative fertilizer for the growth of mustard greens. There are four treatments used in this experiment, where CK is the control, BRH10 is rice husk biochar with 10% mixing rate (w/w), BRH30 is rice husk biochar with 30% (w/w) mixing rate and BRH50 is rice husk biochar...

The management of household solid waste (HSW) has emerged as a key issue in developing nations. A critical analysis of the physical and chemical components of MSW management and infrastructure is necessary to address current socioeconomic issues. According to the World Bank projections, the annual global generation of solid waste from municipalitie...

The primary objective of this study was to gain insight into the kinetics mechanism involved in the removal of oil from produced water using nanobubbles. A small-scale device called Solari - N MBG 0.35, manufactured by Solari Energy Limited, was employed to generate nanobubbles. Batch experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of varying nan...

The presence of nickel in industrial waste has emerged as a significant environmental concern, predominantly attributed to the plating industry. The significant objective of this study is to optimize the precipitation and leaching method to extract valuable nickel from the waste material. The high concentration of nickel found in the waste makes it...

In this century, sustainability has become an essential element in any project to ensure a safe environment. The conversion of waste materials is an important step towards achieving sustainability. Moreover, converting these materials into adsorbents to treat wastewater shows great potential, especially due to its cost-effectiveness and the reducti...

Plating process now has been widely used in the electronics industries for corrosion resistance purpose. One of favorable solution used in nickel-plating process is Watts Bath solution. After several duration of time, the used Watts Bath must be discarded. Due to high amount of nickel concentration inside the Watts Bath, it has been considered as a...

Nickel is a silvery-white metal that is in high demand for a variety of commercial applications due to its ability to withstand high temperatures and corrosive environments. However, the widespread use of nickel compounds in many applications has resulted serious environmental pollutions if they are not properly treated before discharging. The elec...

Many applications use Spent Bleaching Earth (SBE) despite being considered hazardous waste from the palm oil refinery process. Its production increases yearly, similar to waste cooking oil (WCO). The SBE is known as a thickener in grease formulation. The same goes for red gypsum, waste motor oil, stearic acid, and lithium hydroxide monohydrate. The...

Lubricating grease is usually produced from mineral oil, making the relationship between grease and mineral oil unavoidable. Formulation of grease from waste oil can reduce the dependency of the grease industry on mineral oil as well as help to reduce the waste generation of used oil. This study aims to produce fumed silica (FS) grease from waste e...

This study focuses on understanding the Pb adsorption kinetics from greywater using a composite of chitosan and ceramic waste (CCCW), which is suitable for preserving water quality. For ease and general application, a kinetic model with a simple expression and a manageable small set of parameters that nevertheless provides a fair adsorption descrip...

Microplastic (MP) is an emerging contaminant of concern due to its ubiquitous quantity in the environment, small size, and potential toxicity due to strong affinity towards other contaminants. In this work, MP particles (5–300 μm) were extracted from a commercial facial cleanser and determined to be irregular polyethylene (PE) microbeads based on c...

The atmospheric level of carbon dioxide (CO2) is indicated to be alarming which in turn has contributed to the worldwide environmental issue such as global warming. The goal of this project was to study the adsorption of CO2 onto regenerated spent bleaching earth (RSBE). Spent bleaching earth (SBE) can be a good adsorbent but it has the weakness in...

The removal of sulfur dioxide from industrial flue gas through dry flue gas desulfurization method commonly involves the use of adsorption process with porous sorbent. The efficiency of this process is highly dependent on the adsorption capacity and the adsorption rate of SO2 onto the sorbent materials. The use of KCC-1 mesoporous silica modified w...

Lignocellulosic biomass especially, sugarcane bagasse Saccharum barberi sp., appears to be a more suitable material for partial substitution of transport fuel (diesel) than Saccharum officinarum sp., due to its structural similarity to transport fuel (diesel). Besides that, less research has been implemented on this type of species. Bio-oil can be...

Bio-oil from biomass is considered as a potential substitute to partially replace phenol in the preparation of phenol formaldehyde resin as replacement to the commercial phenol which high in cost. However, the percentages of bio-oil substitutions need to be determined to ensure that the performance is good as the commercial ones. The aim of this re...

Plastic waste generation has increased dramatically every day. Indiscriminate disposal of plastic wastes can lead to several negative impacts on the environment, such as a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution. Therefore, it is wise to think of other alternatives to reduce plastic wastes without affecting the environm...

Waste tires have been identified as one of the contributors to environmental problems and the issue of inadequate landfill spaces. The lack of consistent and systematic approaches such as specific regulations/laws or mechanisms of waste management to waste tires, limited application of technology for recycling waste tires and lack of awareness on t...

The presence of microplastics and nanoplastics in the environment poses significant hazards towards microorganisms, humans, animals and plants. This paper is focused on recent literature studies and patents discussing the removal process of these plastic pollutants. Microplastics and nanoplastics can be quantified by counting, weighing, absorbance...

Non-enzymatic glucose sensors based on the use of copper and its oxides have emerged as promising candidates to replace enzymatic glucose sensors owing to their stability, ease of fabrication, and superior sensitivity. This review explains the theories of the mechanism of glucose oxidation on copper transition metal electrodes. It also presents an...

Conversion of CO2 captured from biogas upgrading process into useful chemicals or fuels e.g. methane is an attractive route towards conservation of carbon sources. Sustainable hydrogenation route could be achieved by combining the process with hydrogen generated from water electrolysis. In this work, cyclic voltammetry was used as preliminary techn...

Alcoholic fermentation of fermentable carbon sources like molasses and table sugar using yeast are typical route in producing alcohol particularly known as bioethanol (C2H5OH). The key challenge encountered in bioethanol production process is to eliminate the impurity presence within the bioethanol which mainly water. Distillation is an energy exte...

Biogas is a source of clean energy that mainly consists of methane (CH 4 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). However, the presence of CO 2 in biogas limits the heating value of the gas. Thus, biogas upgrading is a crucial process for reducing the CO 2 content in raw biogas for purified biomethane production. Chemical absorption is a matured technology fo...

A determination of soil heavy metal (Cu, Mn and Ni) concentrations in Perlis state, Malaysia was performed to define the level of soil pollution. Six soil samples were collected at depth of 0 – 15 cm in industrial, residential and school areas around Perlis. The highest concentration of Mn (57.80 mg/kg) and Ni (2.83 mg/kg) were detected at limeston...

Currently, three are several agricultural bio-based materials have been successfully utilized as gas adsorbents. In this study, waste coffee grounds (WCGs) have been selected as a potential precursor of Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ) adsorbents. The preparation parameters for activated carbon derived from WCGs were optimized using Response Surface Methodol...

In the past few years, composite membrane has been introduced to cater the limitation of polymeric and inorganic membranes. However, the fabrication of ideal composite membrane with appropriate loading of filler remains challenging. Thus, the material selection as well as optimum loading with the conditions observed for the formulation of the compo...

The current work aimed to investigate the removal mechanism of NH 4 + from wastewater treatment plant effluent (WWTPE) onto the zeolite in the plug-flow column reactor (PFCR). The adsorption process was optimised © as a function of length (2-15), time (0.5-20 202 min), and accumulation (0.05-2.4 mg/g) using response surface methodology (RSM). The o...

Utilization of CO 2 , which is the main contributor to the global climate change is one of the means to produce useful chemicals and fuels while at the same time reduce CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere. Ruthenium (Ru) was chosen as the probe catalyst in carbon dioxide hydrogenation based on its ability to selectively enhance methanation reactio...

simple and reliable non-enyzmatic glucose sensor can be synthesized by anodizing copper foil in a solution of NaOH. A 2(5-1) experiment design with two replicates is used to screen important factors and it was found that the three most important factors to consider are the anodizing potential, NaOH concentration, and temperature. A central composit...

The presence of phenols and phenolic compounds in water and wastewater has gained great public attention and it is one of the most frequent pollutants in wastewater. In this study, the adsorption of 4-Nitrophenol from wastewater using activated carbon prepared from the non-edible Sea Mango ( Cerbera odollam ) fruit was investigated. The Sea Mango A...

Catalytic pyrolysis is a favourable process used to enhance the quality of bio-oil. Based on reviews from previous research there are only scarce of studies on the comparison of catalytic and non-catalytic pyrolysis of biomass such as rice husk, olive husk and corncob. In this study, sugarcane bagasse was selected as it has not been explored much y...

High concentration ammonium (NH4⁺) discharges from aerated lagoon effluent (ALE) correlated to eutrophication of receiving waters. This study presents the first attempt to scrutinise the mass transfer mechanism of NH4⁺ from ALE onto the granular activated carbon (GAC) in batch and plug-flow column (PFC) studies. The GAC was characterised by BET sur...

Greywater is one of the point source pollution that negatively impact water resources if not properly treated. However, improvement of greywater quality can be potentially used for irrigation purpose. The main objective of this study is to calculate the lifetime for calcined waste mussel shell (CWMS) in hydrodynamic column. This study was performed...

Activated carbon derived from sea mango (cerbera odollam), SMAC, was developed from phosphoric acid (H3PO4) activation. Box-Behnken Design (BBD) was employed to optimize the surface area of the SMAC. The tested factors were acid concentration (40 to 60%), carbonization temperature (400 to 600°C) and activation time (1 to 3 h). The optimized paramet...

Ozonation of activated sludge in the present of titanium dioxide (TiO2) as catalyst to enhance the production of hydroxyl radical was evaluated in comparison to the sole ozonation process. In this process, the catalytic ozontion showed improvement in increasing ozone consumption and improving activated sludge disintegration and solubilisation. The...

The increment amount of the CO2 emission by years has become a major concern worldwide due to the global warming issue. However, the influence modification of activated carbon (AC) has given a huge revolution in CO2 adsorption capture compare to the unmodified AC. In the present study, the Deep Eutectic Solvent (DES) modified surface AC was used fo...

Oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) was successfully modified with phosphoric acid hydration followed by impregnation with copper oxide (CuO) to synthesize CuO modified catalytic carbon (CuO/EFBC) for low-temperature removal of nitric oxide (NO) from gas streams. CuO impregnation was optimised through response surface methodology (RSM) using Box-Behnk...

The activated sludge system is an effective biological treatment applied widely in both industrial and municipal wastewater treatment facilities worldwide. Yet, the big issue arising from this process is the huge amount of sludge production at the end of the process. Thus, this study was aimed at studying the sludge disintegration and solubilisatio...

Municipal solid wastes (MSW) collected from Padang Siding Landfill, Perlis were segregated and characterized in the laboratory. The main components of MSW found are paper, plastic, glass and large proportion of organic waste. Moisture content was measured for all the components. Paper and yard wastes recorded the highest percentage of 26.7% and 28....

The environmental impact of global warming, caused by greenhouse gases has also fuelled the needs to utilise biomass, as its energy utilisation creates less environmental pollution and fewer health risks than fossil fuel combustion. Liquefaction of biomass using hydrogen donor solvents is a promising route to obtain clean biofuel using various solv...

Landfill leachate is generally known as high-strength wastewater that is difficult to handle and contains dissolved extracts and suspended matter. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) were designed to treat landfill leachate while continuously producing power (voltage output). Three different anodes were tested in MFC reactors: carbon black, activated carbo...

In recent years, carbon dioxide (CO2) emission has become a major concern as the amount of the emitted gas significantly increases annually. Consequently, this phenomenon contributes to global warming. Several CO2 capture methods, including chemical adsorption by activated carbon, have been proposed. In this study, activated carbon was prepared fro...

The utilization of electrochemical process recovery involving low reactant concentrations of metal requires electrodes with high mass transport rates and specific surface areas. This is essential to increase cross-sectional current densities whilst optimizing the capital and operating costs. Experimental results demonstrated that Circulating Partic...

A preliminary study on low-temperature nitric oxide (NO) removal was conducted using carbon-supported catalyst system derived from local agricultural biomass, oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB). Raw EFB was chemically treated with phosphoric acid, heated and impregnated with metal catalyst (copper oxide, CuO) at 5 wt% metal loading. The system was ch...

Sea mango (Cerbera odollam), a non-edible fruit which is abundantly available in Malaysia was transformed into a potential low-cost activated carbon for the removal of methyl orange (MO) (mono azo dye) from textile wastewater. The activated carbon was subjected to carbonization process at 200°C with nitrogen (N2), followed by chemical activation wi...

The influence of reaction pressure, reaction time, reaction temperature, and biomass-to-water mass ratio R on the conversion of miscanthus biomass to biofuels under sub- and supercritical water (SCW) conditions was investigated. The highest total conversion was obtained under SCW conditions and the heating value increased under subcritical and SCW...

The properties of the activated carbon from Sea Mango (Cerbera Odollam) prepared from chemical and physical activation was studied. The sample was impregnated with phosphoric acid (H3PO4) at the impregnation ratio of precursor to activant as 1:2 and followed by thermal activation at 500°C with different flowing gas i.e. nitrogen (N2), carbon dioxid...

Sea mango or Cerbera Odollam is another source of carbonaceous material that can be found abundantly in Malaysia. In this research, it is used as a new agricultural source of activated carbon. Sea mango activated carbon was prepared by chemical activation using potassium hydroxide (KOH). The sea mango was soaked in KOH at impregnation ratio of 1:1...

In this study the performance of regenerated spent carbon for azo dye removal was evaluated in batch and continuous column. The spent carbon was generated by thermal method through pyrolysis process and chemical method by using NaOH 6.0 M solution. Reactive Red 120 (RR120) was selected as a model of azo dye due to its common application in the indu...

The electrochemical reduction of CO2 dioxide into HCOO- on a Sn cathode is well described in literature. However, the issue of deactivation and loss of Sn and a suitable non-aqueous supporting electrolyte remains unresolved. This work aims to develop and characterize Sn as a cathode material and describe a suitable non-aqueous supporting electrolyt...

This paper presents the adsorption study of Basic Red 46 onto a non-edible sea mango or scientifically known as Cerbera odollam. The Cerbera odollam activated carbon was produced using chemical activation method using potassium hydroxide (KOH) as activating agent. The Cerbera odollam activated carbon produced was then characterized using Scanning E...

Pyrolysis of palm kernel shell in a fixed-bed reactor was studied in this paper. The objectives were to investigate the effect of pyrolysis temperature and particle size on the products yield and to characterize the bio-oil product. In order to get the optimum pyrolysis parameters on bio-oil yield, temperatures of 350, 400, 450, 500 and 550 °C and...

Performance of rubber sludge disintegration by ozonation was investigated at pH 7 and pH 9 with a contact time of 20 minute and ozonation rate of 12.7 mg/min. The amount of sludge reduction expressed as TS (mg/L) was 66.8 % at neutral and 58.86% in alkaline medium. Results showed solubilisation of sludge increased to 76.5% and 73.7% at pH 7 and...

The electrochemical reduction of CO_2 dioxide into 〖HCOO〗^- on a Sn cathode is well described in literature. However, the issue of deactivation and loss of Sn and a suitable non-aqueous supporting electrolyte remains unresolved. This work aims to develop and characterize Sn as a cathode material and describe a suitable non-aqueous supporting electr...

In this study, the degradation characteristic of monoazo, diazo and anthraquinone dye by UV / H 2 O 2 process was evaluated based on the trend of color, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total organic carbon (TOC) removal. Three types of dyes consist of monoazo, diazo and anthraquinone dyes were used to compare the degradation mechanism of th...

In this study, the degradation characteristic of monoazo, diazo and anthraquinone dye by UV/H2O2 process was evaluated based on the trend of color, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total organic carbon (TOC) removal. Three types of dyes consist of monoazo, diazo and anthraquinone dyes were used to compare the degradation mechanism of the dyes. The...

A compact multifunctional Pd/alumina hollow fibre membrane reactor (HFMR) has been developed and used for the catalytic dehydrogenation of methylcyclohexane to toluene. The developed HFMR consists of a thin and defect-free Pd membrane of 5 μm coated directly onto the outer surface of an alumina hollow fibre substrate. The substrate, was prepared by...

Waste tyres which are mainly generated from automotive industries have become a major environmental problem to the local authorities, thetyre industries and tyre dealer. When tyres are no longer usable due to worn-out, defect or servicefailure they are usually dumped in the landfill sites. Pyrolysis is a process of the thermal decomposition of wast...

The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of turbidity removal in water by using Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) as natural coagulant. The coagulation active agent in various Okra sections was extracted with distilled water and NaCl 1.0 M solutions. Synthetic water containing kaolin with turbidity of 55 NTU was usedas water source...

A study of catalytic pyrolysis on rice straw was carried out in a fixed-bed reactor. The objectives were to determine the effect of dolomite catalyst on the distribution of product yield and bio-oil characterization. The non-catalytic and catalytic process of rice straw was performed at the optimum conditions. The chemical characterization studies...

The study of catalytic pyrolysis on rice straw was carried out in a fixed-bed reactor. The objectives were to determine the effect of catalyst on the distribution of product yield and bio-oil characterization. The non-catalytic and catalytic process of rice straw was performed at the optimum conditions with zeolite ZSM-5 and dolomite catalyst. The...

In this study, the trend of azo dye degradation by ozonation and advanced oxidation process was evaluated base on colour and COD removal efficiency of Reactive Red 120. In addition, FT-IR spectrum was analysed to determine the mechanism of azo dye degradation. Reactive Red 120 has been selected amongst azo dyes due to its high solubility in aquatic...