Current work focuses on investigating the rumours or myths saying that adding potatoes would be able to fix an oversalted dish, particularly soups. Based on our survey on the internet, there are various sources and blogs reporting yes and no. And the test they carried did not carry proper scientific and empirical methods. In this study, we carried out the experiment to test and find out if potatoes would be able to cause any effect on salinity through salt solution. With proper volume and mass measurement, salinity refractometer to record the salinity properly, and proper experimentation, we believe the rumours can be answered accordingly. The results showed that boiled potatoes immersed into salt solution (8%) indeed were able to reduce salinity up to 20 %. The potatoes did not act as an adsorbent, but functioned as water carriers allowing diffusion of salt ions from the concentrated solution into the less concentrated water region carried by the potatoes. In this abstract, we detailed out the methodology and further interpretation of the results.

A palm oil refinery involves energy-intensive processes. Maximizing thermal efficiencyof palm oil refinery is crucial for the plant profitability. This work implements a pinch analysisretrofit technique to maximize heat recovery and thermal efficiency of a palm oil refinery, subjectto the existing process constraints. The procedures involve setting the maximum heat recoverytargets and cost-effective retrofit of the heat exchanger network (HEN). Application of the techniqueon a palm oil refinery results in reduction of 700 kW (21%) heating and cooling loads or a savingof RM370,787, incurring a capital investment of about RM656,293 and a payback period of 1.77years. Keywords:Pinch analysis; palm oil; retrofit; heat exchanger network; maximum heat recovery

A medication’s approximate release profile should be sustained in order to generate the desired therapeutic effect. The drug’s release site, duration, and rate must all be adjusted to the drug’s therapeutic aim. However, when designing drug delivery systems, this may be a considerable hurdle. Electrospinning is a promising method of creating a nanofibrous membrane since it enables drugs to be placed in the nanofiber composite and released over time. Nanofiber composites designed through electrospinning for drug release purposes are commonly constructed of simple structures. This nanofiber composite produces matrices with nanoscale fiber structure, large surface area to volume ratio, and a high porosity with small pore size. The nanofiber composite’s large surface area to volume ratio can aid with cell binding and multiplication, drug loading, and mass transfer processes. The nanofiber composite acts as a container for drugs that can be customized to a wide range of drug release kinetics. Drugs may be electrospun after being dissolved or dispersed in the polymer solution, or they can be physically or chemically bound to the nanofiber surface. The composition and internal structure of the nanofibers are crucial for medicine release patterns.

Remazol brilliant blue R dye (RBBR) brings toxicity to living organisms once it enters the environment. This study utilized response surface methodology (RSM) and Polymath software for optimization and mass transfer simulation purposes, respectively. RSM revealed that the optimum preparation conditions of meranti wood-based activated carbon (MWAC) were 441 W, 5.76 min, and 1.35 g/g for radiation power, radiation time, and KOH:char impregnation ratio (IR), respectively, which translated into 86.39 mg/g of RBBR uptakes and 31.94 % of MWAC’s yield. The simulation study predicted the mass transfer rate, rm to be 112.20 to 1007.50 s 1 and the adsorption rate, k1 to be 3.96 to 4.34 h 1 . The developed model predicted the adsorption surface area, am to be 790.04 m2 /g and this value is highly accurate as compared to the actual mesopores surface area of 825.58 m2 /g. Mechanism analysis divulged that the interaction that occurred between RBBR molecules and MWAC’s surface were hydrogen bond (methylene and alkyne), dipole–dipole force (alkyl carbonate, terminal alkyne, and methoxy), and ion–dipole force (primary amine). The isotherm and kinetic studies found that the adsorption data obeyed the Freundlich model and pseudo-first-order (PFO) model the best, respectively. The Langmuir maximum adsorption capacity, Qm was computed to be 327.33 mg/g. Thermodynamic parameters were calculated to be 4.06 kJ mol 1 , 0.06 kJ mol 1 K 1 , –22.69 kJ mol 1 , and 16.03 kJ mol 1 for DH , DS , DG , and Ea, respectively, which signified the adsorption process studied was exothermic, spontaneous and governed by physisorption.

Carbon membranes are known for their high performance in the separation of gases, particularly for gases with similar kinetic diameter. For this reason, the investigation of carbon membranes continues to increase their performance by tweaking the formulation and heating strategy. One of the formulation aspects is polymer selection, which plays an important role in determining the success of producing carbon membrane with acceptable performance. This is because each polymer has its own characteristics, which then determines the method to be used to synthesize the carbon membrane. Four types of polymers were identified to produce carbon membranes, which are based on non-modified polymer solutions, modified polymer or polymer solutions, non-commercial organic materials and natural polymers such as natural cellulose. This review discusses the overview performances provided by each material.

Polluting the environment with synthetic dyes can adversely affect humans, animals, and plants. This study aimed to produce optimized palm-trunk-based activated carbon (PTAC) using response surface methodology (RSM) to remove methylene blue (MB) dye. The PTAC was prepared by physical activation with microwave radiation and carbon dioxide (CO2) gasification. The RSM revealed the optimal PTAC preparations with an activation time of 4 minutes and a radiation power of 501 W, respectively. Optimized PTAC removed 91.25 % of the MB dye, and the PTAC yield was 32.37 %. The Brunauer- EmmettTeller (BET) surface area of this sample is 772.35 m2 /g, the pore volume is 0.45 cm3 /g, and the fixed carbon content is 74.30 %. The pores created in PTAC is mesopores type of pores, with an average diameter of 3.88 nm. The Freundlich model performed the best on the adsorption isotherm which signified the multilayer coverage of MB occurred on the surface of PTAC. The maximum monolayer adsorption capacity, Qm computed from Langmuir model was found to be 312.50 mg/g. In terms of kinetic study, the pseudo-second-order (PSO) model performed the best with rate constant, k2 decreased from 0.087 to 0.016 g/mg.h when MB initial concentration increased from 25 to 300 mg/L. The thermodynamic study revealed that the adsorption of MB onto PTAC was endothermic in nature (H° = 34.48 kJ/mol), spontaneous (G° = -5.22 to -8.99 kJ/mol) and governed by physisorption (Ea = 7.33 kJ/mol). Therefore, PTAC showed excellent application in dyes wastewater treatment systems.

Water treatment technology is one of the most important mechanism in our life. It turns unclean water into a clean and safely consumables by us. Over the years, research and invention over water treatment technology have progressed in terms of energy consumption, materials of interest, cost reduction, efficiency, land usage and mechanisms utilizing the concept of science around us. Conventional technology of water treatment can be categorized into physical, chemical, and biological treatments. Physical treatments include screening, filtration, sedimentation, flotation etc. Chemical treatment includes disinfection, precipitation, adsorption, ion-exchange, ozonation etc. Biological treatment involves aerobic and anaerobic biological treatments. However, there are new potential advanced technology being developed to clean our water in better way of many aspects. Among latest water filtration technology in water treatment interesting to discuss are nanotechnology, acoustic nanotube technology, photocatalytic water purification technology, aquaporin InsideTM technology and automatic variable filtration (AVF) technology. In this paper, the application of advanced technology in water treatment is discussed in a brief manner with latest development and challenge reported in the literature. With this review paper, hopefully, it will shed some lights for newcomers that want to learn or to get overview about current development of nanotechnology in water treatment system.