The research conducted on the microorganisms responsible for the degradation of microplastics has... more The research conducted on the microorganisms responsible for the degradation of microplastics has revealed the biodegradation potential of the isolated Bacillus enclensis identified as bioflocculant-producing bacteria. This strain was found to produce flocculants with 93% flocculating activity when exposed to microplastics as a carbon source. B. enclensis was determined to be the bacteria producing the bioflocculant, and its biodegradation was confirmed by a decrease in the weight of the polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene microplastics, as well as morphological and chemical changes as determined by SEM and FTIR analysis. B. enclensis is a promising microbial candidate for future bioremediation processes.
The physical profile and chemical composition of growing media are vital in evaluating fish waste... more The physical profile and chemical composition of growing media are vital in evaluating fish waste filtration efficiency and plant growth performance in aquaponics. The present study reported and compared the physical and chemical evaluation of the novel fabricated Kaolina, gravel, and commercially used lightweight expanded clay aggregate (LECA) as growing medias in aquaponics. Field emission scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (FESEM-EDX) was utilized to analyze the growing media’s chemical composition and structural characterization. The resultant effect of these growing medias on water quality and the growth performance of Clarias gariepinus and Lactuca sativa were also reported. Kaolina exhibited an excellent physical profile (42.95 ± 1.39%) in water absorption capacity as compared to LECA (35.90 ± 1.28%) and gravel (1.97 ± 0.25%), showing a significant difference at p < 0.05. The addition of 25% w/w Musa paradisiaca peel in the fabrication of Kaolina gives an added value of 88.0% of K and 100% of P elements, which show a significant difference (p < 0.05) compared to LECA. The results obtained reveal a better daily growth rate (DGR) and relative growth rate (RGR) of L. sativa at 0.57 ± 0.02 cm/day and 0.21 ± 0.00 g/day, respectively. Results indicated that the porous structure of growing media could contribute to the high-water retention capability and slow the water desorption process. Hence, it could increase the ability of the growing media to hold nutrients for plant intake, resulting in higher removal percentage of nutrients in aquaponics system. Kaolina gives the highest nutrient removal percentage of TAN (96.86 ± 1.50%), NO2 (83.56 ± 1.27%), NO3 (77.55 ± 0.48%), and PO4 (79.46 ± 0.42%). The results also shown growing media has considerable impacts on nutrient removal, which contribute to the aquaponic productions.
The increasing demands in textile industries has created huge production of textile coloured prod... more The increasing demands in textile industries has created huge production of textile coloured products globally, leading to large production of textile effluent. Textile effluent is often discharged to the environment without proper treatment by the textile factories. The untreated textile effluent typically contains harmful chemicals and is hazardous to the environment, due to the toxicity of the dyes used. In this study, biological treatment is applied to the textile effluent. A 2-level full factorial design from response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to find the optimized treatment process condition for the textile wastewater degradation. Sixteen runs of experiment with 4 factors were performed; bacterial inoculum (%, v/v), temperature (℃), agitation (rpm), and pH were tested. It was observed highest decolourization obtained (91.95 % with pH 4, low concentration of bacterial inoculum (5 %), agitation speed (200 rpm) and temperature (40 ℃)) meanwhile lowest decolourization ...
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and system to remove al... more Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and system to remove alkaloid toxic in plant tuber. It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system to remove alkaloid toxic in plant tuber, said method and system is computerized. It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system to remove alkaloid toxic in plant tuber and said computerized system adapting preprogrammed system and equipped with various mechanical and electrical apparatuses.
International Journal on Advanced Science, Engineering and Information Technology, 2017
The Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) nowadays becomes a serious problem and crucial issue in th... more The Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) nowadays becomes a serious problem and crucial issue in the radio astronomy observation. The radio astronomical lines observation become worse due to the more RFI in Ultra High Frequency (UHF) and Very High Frequency (VHF) which influences the data in radio image. The aims of this paper are to investigate the radio environment level in hydrogen (HI) band (1300-1500MHz) and also in a wide band (0-9000 MHz). The observation site is at KUSZA Observatory (KO), Langkawi National Observatory (LNO) and East Coast Environmental Research Institute (ESERI). In this paper, the statistical kurtosis and waterfall method are applied on the radio environment data. The highest average of kurtosis values indicates the lowest of radio environment level at these sites. From obtained results, the highest average of kurtosis value in wide band obtained at 'LNO' which 20.33 and in the specific band was found at 'KO' with a value of 6.06. This preliminary study is important to identify the radio environment level in radio astronomical specific band such as HI band.
Dunaliella sp. isolated from South China Sea were tested in different salinities (10, 30 and 50... more Dunaliella sp. isolated from South China Sea were tested in different salinities (10, 30 and 50 ppt). Results showed that growth of Dunaliella sp. was significantly higher (p < 0.05) and faster at 10 ppt compared to 30 and 50 ppt. Protein, lipid and carbohydrate content were also higher at 10 ppt. Protein and carbohydrate content was higher in stationary phase (10 ppt) meanwhile lipid was recorded higher in exponential phase (10ppt).
International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, 2017
The application of solid acid catalyst in biodiesel production eliminates the tedious pretreatmen... more The application of solid acid catalyst in biodiesel production eliminates the tedious pretreatment of feedstock and eradicates generation of high volume of wastewater. A novel acid catalyst was prepared via sulfonation of incompletely carbonized coconut shell using concentrated sulfuric acid. The design of experiments were performed using four factor-three-level central composite design coupled with response surface methodology to evaluate the interaction between two factors in order to determine the optimum process conditions. A quadratic model was suggested for the prediction of biodiesel yield. The F-value and p-value of the model were 4.02 and 0.0129, respectively, indicate that the model was statistically significant at 95 per cent confidence interval. In addition, R 2 value of the model was 0.8364, which indicates the acceptable accuracy of the model. From the optimization study, it was found that the carbonization temperature, carbonization time, sulfonation temperature and sulfonation time were 422 C, 4 h, 100 C and 15 h, respectively. At these optimum conditions the predicted and observed biodiesel yield were 88.15 per cent and 88.03 per cent, respectively, which experimentally verified the accuracy of the model. The use of coconut shell-derived solid acid catalyst in biodiesel production promotes the sustainable and green way of operations.
Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology
The demand for green products is pushing industries to search for more eco-friendly materials, es... more The demand for green products is pushing industries to search for more eco-friendly materials, especially for food packaging applications. Starch biopolymer has been recognized as biodegradable material that can be produced from various plants. However, the strength of starch-based bioplastic retards their widespread application. Simultaneously, the high amount of agricultural waste produced by the food industry has been a growing environmental issue. Incorporating agro-waste fibers as a biofiller in starch-based bioplastic can improve the properties of the bioplastic, allowing its use in various applications. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the effect of chemical treatment on the structural, thermal, and mechanical properties of sugarcane bagasse as filler for starch-based bioplastic. Results showed that alkaline treatment improved surface roughness and freed it of surface impurities. Results revealed that the thermal stability and mechanical properties improved significantly with the incorporation of sugarcane bagasse (SB) loading into potato starch (PS). The highest tensile strength (5.30 MPa) and Young&amp;amp;amp;#39;s modulus (28.72 MPa) were exhibited by the sample with 6% SB loading and further increments of SB led to a decrease in the strength of the biopolymer. The incorporation of alkali-treated SB could increase and enhance the tensile strength and thermal stability of the bioplastic. This would contribute to reinforced materials that will allow for the application of PS as a new potential biodegradable material. Thus, it reduces the disposal period process and has great potential as an environmentally friendly, biodegradable, and renewable material.
Biodiesel is one of the renewable energy (RE) sources that has received much interest due to its ... more Biodiesel is one of the renewable energy (RE) sources that has received much interest due to its promising properties. Recently, the use of coconut oil as biodiesel has caught the attention of many researchers. As a result, this paper presents a comprehensive overview of the current catalysts used to produce coconut oil biodiesel via the transesterification method.
Environmental education is considered as a life-long process starting from pre-school level conti... more Environmental education is considered as a life-long process starting from pre-school level continuing through all stages of formal and informal education. Student’s environmental awareness as one of the components of environmental education has been investigated for many years in Nigeria. Due to lack of sufficient literature, this paper is aimed to investigate the level of environmental awareness and also ascertain the effects of race, type of school, and location on environmental awareness level of secondary school students in Kano State, Nigeria. It was done by conducting a survey study method. A total of 1200 respondents were selected out of 507,061 secondary school students who were in SS 2 in Kano State using simple random sampling techniques. Environmental Awareness Test was used as the instrument for data collection. The data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Mean and Standard Deviation was used to answer the research question while one-wa...
Environmental attitude is the mental disposition of an individual regarding the environment. It i... more Environmental attitude is the mental disposition of an individual regarding the environment. It is the attitude of individual towards the environment that guarantees his well-being of that environment. This attitude can be discriminated against the individuals and society via the school system. The present study was conducted to assess the attitude of secondary school students towards the environment. It also studied the differences in the level of the environmental attitude of students based on parental educational level and parental occupation. Moreover, it aimed to find whether age and parental educational level can predict environmental attitude of students. The survey was conducted on 600 respondents from secondary school students who were in Form Four in Terengganu, Malaysia. Simple random sampling was the technique applied in the selection of respondents. Environmental Attitude Questionnaire consisting of 10 items adapted from Hassan Taj Environmental Attitude Scale was emplo...
Journal of Textile Engineering & Fashion Technology, 2017
The load-displacement curves in Figure 3, shows crushing history of the hexagonal composite tube ... more The load-displacement curves in Figure 3, shows crushing history of the hexagonal composite tube with an aspect ratio (L/t=70 and β=55˚). Initially, the load rises almost linearly to its first peak
The current and escalating extent of soil degradation, water scarcity and environmental concern p... more The current and escalating extent of soil degradation, water scarcity and environmental concern plaguing agricultural productivity, demands re-assessing the direction of food production. Aquaponics is a concept relatively new to modern food production methods and can contribute to food security. This study was conducted to establish sustainable aquaculture systems that maximize benefits and minimize the accumulation of detrimental compounds and other types of negative impacts on both natural and social environments. This study carried out at an average inflow rate of 1.28 m/day to evaluate the operation of the aquaponics recirculation system (ARS) on nutrients removal and growth and yield of African catfish as well as water spinach. A special design of ARS was used to provide nitrification of fishery wastewater, where the combination of sands and gravels in hydroponics trough, providing both surfaces for biofuel development and cultivation area for plants. Removal efficiencies of...
International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry
Textile industry has been rapidly progressing over the years, leading to an increasing volume of ... more Textile industry has been rapidly progressing over the years, leading to an increasing volume of water usage that contributes to the large production of textile wastewater. Biological treatment pro...
Gamification of education is new field in education that is attracting researchers who are passio... more Gamification of education is new field in education that is attracting researchers who are passionate on education. However, no much researches were made to assess the users’ perception on its application in enhancing students understanding of certain subjects such as Environmental Education. This article is aimed at assessing the students’ attitude on the application of eeGamification in environmental education. The method employed was survey method. A structured questionnaire was used and a total of 372 respondents were used in the study. The survey employed descriptive statistics analysis to measure the level of students’ attitude towards eeGamification. The result indicates that students have positive attitude towards gamification. This shows that students accept the idea of gamification in improving students’ understanding of Environmental Education.
The research conducted on the microorganisms responsible for the degradation of microplastics has... more The research conducted on the microorganisms responsible for the degradation of microplastics has revealed the biodegradation potential of the isolated Bacillus enclensis identified as bioflocculant-producing bacteria. This strain was found to produce flocculants with 93% flocculating activity when exposed to microplastics as a carbon source. B. enclensis was determined to be the bacteria producing the bioflocculant, and its biodegradation was confirmed by a decrease in the weight of the polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene microplastics, as well as morphological and chemical changes as determined by SEM and FTIR analysis. B. enclensis is a promising microbial candidate for future bioremediation processes.
The physical profile and chemical composition of growing media are vital in evaluating fish waste... more The physical profile and chemical composition of growing media are vital in evaluating fish waste filtration efficiency and plant growth performance in aquaponics. The present study reported and compared the physical and chemical evaluation of the novel fabricated Kaolina, gravel, and commercially used lightweight expanded clay aggregate (LECA) as growing medias in aquaponics. Field emission scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (FESEM-EDX) was utilized to analyze the growing media’s chemical composition and structural characterization. The resultant effect of these growing medias on water quality and the growth performance of Clarias gariepinus and Lactuca sativa were also reported. Kaolina exhibited an excellent physical profile (42.95 ± 1.39%) in water absorption capacity as compared to LECA (35.90 ± 1.28%) and gravel (1.97 ± 0.25%), showing a significant difference at p &amp;amp;amp;lt; 0.05. The addition of 25% w/w Musa paradisiaca peel in the fabrication of Kaolina gives an added value of 88.0% of K and 100% of P elements, which show a significant difference (p &amp;amp;amp;lt; 0.05) compared to LECA. The results obtained reveal a better daily growth rate (DGR) and relative growth rate (RGR) of L. sativa at 0.57 ± 0.02 cm/day and 0.21 ± 0.00 g/day, respectively. Results indicated that the porous structure of growing media could contribute to the high-water retention capability and slow the water desorption process. Hence, it could increase the ability of the growing media to hold nutrients for plant intake, resulting in higher removal percentage of nutrients in aquaponics system. Kaolina gives the highest nutrient removal percentage of TAN (96.86 ± 1.50%), NO2 (83.56 ± 1.27%), NO3 (77.55 ± 0.48%), and PO4 (79.46 ± 0.42%). The results also shown growing media has considerable impacts on nutrient removal, which contribute to the aquaponic productions.
The increasing demands in textile industries has created huge production of textile coloured prod... more The increasing demands in textile industries has created huge production of textile coloured products globally, leading to large production of textile effluent. Textile effluent is often discharged to the environment without proper treatment by the textile factories. The untreated textile effluent typically contains harmful chemicals and is hazardous to the environment, due to the toxicity of the dyes used. In this study, biological treatment is applied to the textile effluent. A 2-level full factorial design from response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to find the optimized treatment process condition for the textile wastewater degradation. Sixteen runs of experiment with 4 factors were performed; bacterial inoculum (%, v/v), temperature (℃), agitation (rpm), and pH were tested. It was observed highest decolourization obtained (91.95 % with pH 4, low concentration of bacterial inoculum (5 %), agitation speed (200 rpm) and temperature (40 ℃)) meanwhile lowest decolourization ...
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and system to remove al... more Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and system to remove alkaloid toxic in plant tuber. It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system to remove alkaloid toxic in plant tuber, said method and system is computerized. It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system to remove alkaloid toxic in plant tuber and said computerized system adapting preprogrammed system and equipped with various mechanical and electrical apparatuses.
International Journal on Advanced Science, Engineering and Information Technology, 2017
The Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) nowadays becomes a serious problem and crucial issue in th... more The Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) nowadays becomes a serious problem and crucial issue in the radio astronomy observation. The radio astronomical lines observation become worse due to the more RFI in Ultra High Frequency (UHF) and Very High Frequency (VHF) which influences the data in radio image. The aims of this paper are to investigate the radio environment level in hydrogen (HI) band (1300-1500MHz) and also in a wide band (0-9000 MHz). The observation site is at KUSZA Observatory (KO), Langkawi National Observatory (LNO) and East Coast Environmental Research Institute (ESERI). In this paper, the statistical kurtosis and waterfall method are applied on the radio environment data. The highest average of kurtosis values indicates the lowest of radio environment level at these sites. From obtained results, the highest average of kurtosis value in wide band obtained at 'LNO' which 20.33 and in the specific band was found at 'KO' with a value of 6.06. This preliminary study is important to identify the radio environment level in radio astronomical specific band such as HI band.
Dunaliella sp. isolated from South China Sea were tested in different salinities (10, 30 and 50... more Dunaliella sp. isolated from South China Sea were tested in different salinities (10, 30 and 50 ppt). Results showed that growth of Dunaliella sp. was significantly higher (p < 0.05) and faster at 10 ppt compared to 30 and 50 ppt. Protein, lipid and carbohydrate content were also higher at 10 ppt. Protein and carbohydrate content was higher in stationary phase (10 ppt) meanwhile lipid was recorded higher in exponential phase (10ppt).
International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, 2017
The application of solid acid catalyst in biodiesel production eliminates the tedious pretreatmen... more The application of solid acid catalyst in biodiesel production eliminates the tedious pretreatment of feedstock and eradicates generation of high volume of wastewater. A novel acid catalyst was prepared via sulfonation of incompletely carbonized coconut shell using concentrated sulfuric acid. The design of experiments were performed using four factor-three-level central composite design coupled with response surface methodology to evaluate the interaction between two factors in order to determine the optimum process conditions. A quadratic model was suggested for the prediction of biodiesel yield. The F-value and p-value of the model were 4.02 and 0.0129, respectively, indicate that the model was statistically significant at 95 per cent confidence interval. In addition, R 2 value of the model was 0.8364, which indicates the acceptable accuracy of the model. From the optimization study, it was found that the carbonization temperature, carbonization time, sulfonation temperature and sulfonation time were 422 C, 4 h, 100 C and 15 h, respectively. At these optimum conditions the predicted and observed biodiesel yield were 88.15 per cent and 88.03 per cent, respectively, which experimentally verified the accuracy of the model. The use of coconut shell-derived solid acid catalyst in biodiesel production promotes the sustainable and green way of operations.
Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology
The demand for green products is pushing industries to search for more eco-friendly materials, es... more The demand for green products is pushing industries to search for more eco-friendly materials, especially for food packaging applications. Starch biopolymer has been recognized as biodegradable material that can be produced from various plants. However, the strength of starch-based bioplastic retards their widespread application. Simultaneously, the high amount of agricultural waste produced by the food industry has been a growing environmental issue. Incorporating agro-waste fibers as a biofiller in starch-based bioplastic can improve the properties of the bioplastic, allowing its use in various applications. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the effect of chemical treatment on the structural, thermal, and mechanical properties of sugarcane bagasse as filler for starch-based bioplastic. Results showed that alkaline treatment improved surface roughness and freed it of surface impurities. Results revealed that the thermal stability and mechanical properties improved significantly with the incorporation of sugarcane bagasse (SB) loading into potato starch (PS). The highest tensile strength (5.30 MPa) and Young&amp;amp;amp;#39;s modulus (28.72 MPa) were exhibited by the sample with 6% SB loading and further increments of SB led to a decrease in the strength of the biopolymer. The incorporation of alkali-treated SB could increase and enhance the tensile strength and thermal stability of the bioplastic. This would contribute to reinforced materials that will allow for the application of PS as a new potential biodegradable material. Thus, it reduces the disposal period process and has great potential as an environmentally friendly, biodegradable, and renewable material.
Biodiesel is one of the renewable energy (RE) sources that has received much interest due to its ... more Biodiesel is one of the renewable energy (RE) sources that has received much interest due to its promising properties. Recently, the use of coconut oil as biodiesel has caught the attention of many researchers. As a result, this paper presents a comprehensive overview of the current catalysts used to produce coconut oil biodiesel via the transesterification method.
Environmental education is considered as a life-long process starting from pre-school level conti... more Environmental education is considered as a life-long process starting from pre-school level continuing through all stages of formal and informal education. Student’s environmental awareness as one of the components of environmental education has been investigated for many years in Nigeria. Due to lack of sufficient literature, this paper is aimed to investigate the level of environmental awareness and also ascertain the effects of race, type of school, and location on environmental awareness level of secondary school students in Kano State, Nigeria. It was done by conducting a survey study method. A total of 1200 respondents were selected out of 507,061 secondary school students who were in SS 2 in Kano State using simple random sampling techniques. Environmental Awareness Test was used as the instrument for data collection. The data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Mean and Standard Deviation was used to answer the research question while one-wa...
Environmental attitude is the mental disposition of an individual regarding the environment. It i... more Environmental attitude is the mental disposition of an individual regarding the environment. It is the attitude of individual towards the environment that guarantees his well-being of that environment. This attitude can be discriminated against the individuals and society via the school system. The present study was conducted to assess the attitude of secondary school students towards the environment. It also studied the differences in the level of the environmental attitude of students based on parental educational level and parental occupation. Moreover, it aimed to find whether age and parental educational level can predict environmental attitude of students. The survey was conducted on 600 respondents from secondary school students who were in Form Four in Terengganu, Malaysia. Simple random sampling was the technique applied in the selection of respondents. Environmental Attitude Questionnaire consisting of 10 items adapted from Hassan Taj Environmental Attitude Scale was emplo...
Journal of Textile Engineering & Fashion Technology, 2017
The load-displacement curves in Figure 3, shows crushing history of the hexagonal composite tube ... more The load-displacement curves in Figure 3, shows crushing history of the hexagonal composite tube with an aspect ratio (L/t=70 and β=55˚). Initially, the load rises almost linearly to its first peak
The current and escalating extent of soil degradation, water scarcity and environmental concern p... more The current and escalating extent of soil degradation, water scarcity and environmental concern plaguing agricultural productivity, demands re-assessing the direction of food production. Aquaponics is a concept relatively new to modern food production methods and can contribute to food security. This study was conducted to establish sustainable aquaculture systems that maximize benefits and minimize the accumulation of detrimental compounds and other types of negative impacts on both natural and social environments. This study carried out at an average inflow rate of 1.28 m/day to evaluate the operation of the aquaponics recirculation system (ARS) on nutrients removal and growth and yield of African catfish as well as water spinach. A special design of ARS was used to provide nitrification of fishery wastewater, where the combination of sands and gravels in hydroponics trough, providing both surfaces for biofuel development and cultivation area for plants. Removal efficiencies of...
International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry
Textile industry has been rapidly progressing over the years, leading to an increasing volume of ... more Textile industry has been rapidly progressing over the years, leading to an increasing volume of water usage that contributes to the large production of textile wastewater. Biological treatment pro...
Gamification of education is new field in education that is attracting researchers who are passio... more Gamification of education is new field in education that is attracting researchers who are passionate on education. However, no much researches were made to assess the users’ perception on its application in enhancing students understanding of certain subjects such as Environmental Education. This article is aimed at assessing the students’ attitude on the application of eeGamification in environmental education. The method employed was survey method. A structured questionnaire was used and a total of 372 respondents were used in the study. The survey employed descriptive statistics analysis to measure the level of students’ attitude towards eeGamification. The result indicates that students have positive attitude towards gamification. This shows that students accept the idea of gamification in improving students’ understanding of Environmental Education.
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