Fly ash (PFA) is a complex material produced after combustion in coal-fired power plants. About half of this fly ash is disposed as solid wastes. A possible alternative to disposal of the fly ash is the synthesis of zeolite. Zeolite Boggsite (Na37Ca74Al185Si775O192 7H2O) was synthesized from fly ash by hydrothermal treatment with NaOH solutions as identified by x-ray diffraction. The zeolite type and degree of crystallization were found to be dependent on the reaction conditions and mineralogy of the raw material, particularly in terms of the relative concentrations of SiO2 and Al2O3.
This article presents an upgraded LUDLUM Scaler Ratemeter Model 2200 into a nucleonic thickness and level gauge. A vertical pipe scanning, consisting mediums such as SS-316, sand, wax, polyethylene, oil, water and air (empty) was done at Malaysian Nuclear Agency, Bangi, Selangor in order to obtain a shielding data as well as the corresponding voltage signals at the ratemeter. A simple comparator circuit with reference potentiometers and LED indicators was then designed and fabricated to work as a thickness or level gauge. The reference can be adjusted in accordance to type and thickness of the pipe/ container, the source intensity of X or Gamma ray, diameter of the pipe and also the distance between source and the NaI(Tl) detector.
The main purpose of this study was to analyzed and examined the cocoa butter samples from Sabah. This work presence the crystal phases present in cocoa butter sample thus proved the existence of polymorphs obtained from differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) analysis and confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The cocoa butter samples were extracted using a conventional method by Soxhlet Extraction method. Crystals were formed under controlled static and tempered conditions. Cocoa butter polymorphism demonstrates that it is the actual crystallization temperature, not the cooling rate that determines the polymorph that crystallizes.
The amount of sugarcane bagasse and rice straw in the state of Perlis (Malaysia) is abundant while its utilization is still limited. One of the alternatives for the bagasse and straw utilization is as pulp raw material. This paper reviews on pulp from sugarcane bagasse and rice straw and its suitability for paper production. In this study, the pulp was extracted by the Soxhlet extraction method. The objective of this study was to investigate the cellulose, lignin and silica content of the pulp from sugarcane bagasse and rice straw. For rice straw, the presence of large amount of pentosanes in the pulp and black liquors, which also contain silica were decreased the using of straw in the paper industry. Therefore, formic acid pulping and NaOH treatment are studied to reduce or prevent silica. The isolated pulp samples were further characterized by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to investigate their fiber dimensions.
The preparation, physical and mechanical properties of Al/B4C composites with 5 and 10 wt.% reinforcement content were investigated. In order to obtain the feedstock with a low powder loading, B4C mixtures containing fine powders were investigated to obtain the optimal particle packing. The experimental results indicated that the fine containing 5 and 10 wt.% particles are able to prepare the feedstock with a good flowability. The composites fabricated by powder metallurgy have low densities and homogeneous microstructures. Additionally there is no interface reaction observed between the reinforcement and matrix by XRD analysis. The hardness of Al/B4C composites prepared by powder metallurgy was high.
Phase composition of calcium phosphate ceramic is a characteristic directly related to the biological response of implants due to the differences in mechanical and biochemical properties of these compounds. The biodegradation rate of biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) can be controlled by altering the HA to β-TCP ratios. In this study the crystalline phase evolution of BCP synthesized via precipitation from aqueous solution of (NH4)2PO4 titrated into heated solution of Ca (NO3)2 was evaluated. The resulting powder was fabricated into porous scaffold using polyurethane foam method. Bulk powders were sintered from 700 - 1400°C to determine the most significant sintering temperature to obtain a stable and well crystallize BCP phases. The porous scaffolds were then sintered at selected temperature and the effects of various sintering times from 5,7,9,11,13 and 15 h were investigated. Bulk powders were characterized by dilatometer, IR analysis and XRD and porous scaffolds were analyzed by XRD and SEMEdx. RIR method was performed to show that the HA to β-TCP ratios were increased with increasing of sintering time and reached the maximum HA value at 11h. It is found that, the possibilities to manipulate the HA to β-TCP ratios in BCP porous scaffold by just controlling the sintering time of the scaffold without controlling the starting powder characteristics.
Heat treatment was introduced onto the aluminum coated low carbon steel to promote the formation of thin layer of oxide for enhancement of oxidation protection of steel. This process has transformed the existing intermetallic layer formed during hot dip aluminizing process. Experiment was conducted on the low carbon steel substrates with 10mm x 10mm x 2mm dimension. Hot dip aluminizing of low carbon steel was carried out at 750 ºC dipping temperature in a molten pure aluminum for 5 minutes. Aluminized samples were heat treated at 600 ºC, 700 ºC, 800 ºC, and 900 ºC for 1 hour. X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and EDAX were used in investigation. From the observation, it showed the intermetallic thickness increased with the increase in temperature. The result of EDAX analysis revealed the existence of oxide phase and the intermetallics. The XRD identified the intermetallics as Fe2Al5 and FeAl3.
In order to prepare Malaysia to be nuclear ready, the Malaysian 1 MW TRIGA MARK II research
reactor (RTP) located at the Malaysian Nuclear Agency was premeditated with the aim to effectually
actualize the multitude areas of basic nuclear research, labor training and education. To meet the
modern safety standards, analyses of a strong interaction between the thermal-hydraulic system
behavior and the space-dependent neutron kinetics are needed as mere thermal-hydraulics codes are
said to be incapable to succeed the present safety standards. This could be achieved through the
coupling of neutronic and thermal-hydraulic codes of the reactor. Previous studies had shown that the
coupled codes are able to successfully be employed for the correlation between thermal-hydraulic
analysis and neutron kinetics at transient and steady state. In this study, the coupling was achieved
through MCNP and TRIGLAV codes for neutronic and thermal-hydraulic respectively. Core-15 of
RTP was modeled for both of the codes; hence calculating the criticality, analysis of power and
neutron flux distribution. The consistency and accuracy of the developed Core-15 MCNP model was
established by comparing calculations to the experimental results and TRIGLAV code. The criticality
predictions for both codes are in very good agreement with the experimental results. The core reached
its criticality after 66 fuels. The highest hot rod power peaking factor was found to be 1.28. The
results are conservative and can be applied to show the reliability of MCNP and TRIGLAV codes.
Feasibility studies on the vitrification of spent ion exchange resins combined with glass cullet powder have been conducted using a High Temperature Test Furnace. Bottle glass cullet powder was used as matrix material to convert the ash of the spent resins into a glass. Vitrificat ion of spent ion exchange resins presents a reasonable disposal alternative, because of its inherent organic destruction capabilities, the volume reduction levels obtainable, and the durable product that it yields. In this study, the spent ion exchange resin from the PUSPATI TRIGA reactor of Nuclear Malaysia was combusted in a lab scale combustor and the resulting ash was vitrified together with glass cullet powder in a high temperature furnace to produce a stable spent resin ash embedded in glass. The factors affecting this immobilized waste, such as thermal stability, radiological stability and leachability have all been investigated. However, the outcome of these tests, which include the radionuclide activity concentration in the slag, the optimum conditioning temperature - in relation with volume reduction during vitrification - and the volume mixing ratio of matrix material were reported. It was found that the radionuclides present in spent resins were 54 Mn, 60 Co and 152Eu. The elementary chemical composition (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur) of spent resins was 27.6% C, 5.68% H, 2.04% N and 4.20% S, respectively. The maximum calorific value of spent resins was 1735 kJ/kg. The average activity concentrations of 54 Mn and 60Co in ash at 200oC were 9,411 ± 243 Bq/Kg and 12,637± 201 Bq/Kg. flue gases containing CO2, CO, SO2 and NO started to be emitted above 200oC. The optimum conditioning temperature was also the highest tested, i.e. 900oC in 45 minutes, and the best mixing ratio ash to matrix material was also the highest, ie 1:9. Finally, the leaching analysis of slag at 900oC in 45 minutes showed that the leaching activity of 60Co was below 0.5 Bq/mL.
In Malaysia, mineral processing plant is one of the Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) processing industries controlled by the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) through the enforcement of Atomic Energy Licensing Act 1984 (Act 304). The activities generated waste which is called as TENORM wastes. TENORM wastes are mainly found in thorium hydroxide from the processing of xenotime and monazite, and iron oxide and red gypsum from the processing of ilmenite. Other TENORM wastes are scales and sludge from the oil and gas industries, tin slag produced from the smelting of tin, and ilmenite, zircon,
and monazite produced from the processing of tin tailing (amang). The environmental and radiological monitoring program is needed to ensure that the TENORM wastes did not caused any contamination to the environment. The wastes vary in the types of samples, parameters of analysis as well as the frequency of monitoring based on license’s conditions issued by the AELB. The main objective of this study is to assess the suitability of license’s condition and the monitoring program required in oil and gas, and mineral processing
industries. Study was done by assessing the data submitted to the AELB in order to comply with the licensing requirement. This study had found out that there are a few of license’s conditions that need to be reviewed accordingly based on the processing activity.
To quantify the effectiveness of deuterons and helium particles at low doses, the inactivation rate in
vitro for V79 cells has been extracted from radiobiological published data. The Physical parameters
characteristics of these charged particles such as the linear energy transfer, the restricted linear
energy transfer, the linear primary ionization and the mean free path are determined. The
relationship between the inactivation rate and the physical parameters for deuterons and heluim-3
particles has been established in this research. This approach enables in getting the distinctive
biological response in terms of varies physical quality parameters. The best statistical regression
fittings are formulated for each correlation.
Even though a lot of new advanced materials have been developed nowadays, steel remains a major material in construction, automobiles, appliances, industrial machinery as well as in the nuclear industry. Due to steel easily corroded, a proper surface protection is required to avoid any failures and extended the life cycle of the components. Surface coating is an efficient and economical method to obtain desirable material surfaces properties. Hot dip aluminizing technique was utilized in this study. Experiments have been conducted on the mild steel substrates with 12mm diameter. Prior to hot dipping process, observation on grain growth at three different temperatures had also been conducted to understand the behaviour of steel under application of heat. The substrates were heated at 700ºC, 800ºC and 900ºC for 1 hour and the microstructure was analyzed. The temperature of 800C was chosen for hot dipping. The substrates were dipped into the molten aluminum maintained at temperature 800ºC for 2,4,6,8,10,15 and 20 minutes. Optical microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy were used in this investigation. From the microstructure observation, it showed the appearance of intermetallic layer covered by the top layer of Al on the mild steel substrate increased with the increase in dipping time ranging from 36 to 282μm. The result of EDX analysis revealed the existence of Fe and Al in form of Fe2Al5 phase for all the dipping time.
Ficus deltoidea or locally known as Mas cotek is one of the common medicinal plants used in
Malaysia. Our previous studies showed that this plant have blood glucose lowering effect. Glucose
uptake into muscle and adipocytes cells is one of the known mechanisms of blood glucose lowering
effect. This study was performed to evaluate the effect of Ficus deltoidea on glucose uptake activity
into muscle cells. The cells were incubated with Ficus deltoidea extracts either a,lone or combination
with insulin. Amount of glucose uptake by L6 myotubes was determined using glucose tracer, 2-deoxy-
[l-:-Hj-glucose. The results showed that Ficus deltoidea extracts at particular doses enhanced basal or
insulin-mediated glucose uptake into muscle cells significantly. Hot aqueous extract enhanced glucose
uptake at the low concentration (10 pg/ml) whereas methanolic extract enhanced basal glucose uptake
at high concentrations (500 and 1000 fig/ml). Meanwhile, ethanolic extract enhanced glucose uptake at
low and high concentrations. Methanolic extract also mimicked insulin activity during enhancing
glucose uptake into L6 muscle cells. Glucose uptake activity of Ficus deltoidea could be attributed by
the phenolic compounds presence in the plant. This study had shown that Ficus deltoidea has the
ability to enhance glucose uptake into muscle cells which is partly contributed the antidiabetic activity
of this plant.
A study to determine the influence of soil water status on the physiology of rice plant Oryza sativa var. MR220 after panicle initiation stage was carried out at Ladang Merdeka Mulong Lating in the Kemubu Agricultural Development Authority (KADA) area, Kelantan. Five water management treatments imposed on direct seeded rice were; T1. Continuous flooding, T2. Early flooding up to panicle initiation stage followed by saturated (F55-saturated), T3. Early flooding for the first month followed by saturated (F-30 saturated), T4. Continuous saturated, and T5. Continuous field capacity condition throughout the growth stage. The treatments were arranged in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replicates. In-situ stomatal conductance measurement was carried out at 68 DAS (days after seeding) and the elemental analysis of soil and plant samples was carried out using the Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA). Results from this study showed significant differences between treatments for soil moisture content and plant moisture content, but no significance different in leaf stomatal conductance. Rice plant moisture, soil moisture and leaf stomatal conductance showed no interaction. Early flooding up to panicle initiation stage followed by saturated (T2: F55-saturated) resulted in higher plant moisture content. Soil plant transfer coefficient was highest in continuous saturated (T4) for nitrogen, early flooding for the first month followed by saturated (T3: F-30 saturated) for potassium, continuous field capacity condition throughout the growth stage (T5) for magnesium, and continuous flooding (T1) for sodium.
The use of microemulsion in the development of nanoparticle based on acrylated palm oil product is demonstrated. Acr ylated palm oil microemulsions were prepared using ionic surfactant. Combination methods of emulsion polymerization and radiation crosslinking were applied to the microemulsion system for synthesizing nanoparticle. The ionizing radiat ion technique was introduced to generate a crosslinking reaction in the development of nanoparticle. The nanoparticle was evaluated in terms of particle diameter, surface charge, pH and conductance. Their image was captured using Tra nsmission electron microscopy (TEM). Results show that the size, charge and shape of the particles are influenced by c oncentration of surfactants, monomer concentration, radiation dose and time of storage. The study showed a promising method to produced nanoparticle. This nano-sized product has the potential to be utilized as controlled-drug-release-carrier.
Fly ash is the finely divided mineral residue resulting from the combustion of coal in electric generating plants. Fly ash consists of inorganic, incombustible matter present in the coal that has been fused during combustion into a glassy, amorphous structure. Fly ash particles are generally spherical in shape and range in size from 2 μm to 10 μm. They consist mostly of silicon dioxide (SiO2), aluminium oxide (Al2O3) and iron oxide (Fe2O3). Fly ash like soil contains trace concentrations of the following heavy metals: nickel, vanadium, cadmium, barium, chromium, copper, molybdenum, zinc and lead. The chemical compositions of the sample have been examined and the fly ash are of ASTM C618 Class F.
Among the challenges for superconducting devices to be applied in industry are the need for high transport critical current density (Jr) and sustainability of the device in different environment. For superconducting material to maintain high 4, effective flux pinning centers are needed. The addition of small size MgO particles in bulk Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 (Bi-2212) superconductor has been proven to enhance the effective flux pinning centers in the superconducting material. Nevertheless, the flux pinning properties of the superconducting materials may change if they are exposed to radioactive environment. Electron irradiation is one of the common techniques that can be used to study the impact of irradiation on superconducting materials. In this work, a small amount of nanosize MgO particles were used as the flux pinning centers for Bi-2212 superconducting material. The Bi-2212/MgO composite was heat treated and followed by partial melting and slow cooling. Some of the samples were subjected to electron irradiation using the facility at the Malaysian Nuclear Agency. Characterizations of non-irradiated and irradiated samples were performed via X-ray Diffraction Patterns (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and measurements of J, dependence on temperature in self-field. Higher J, indicates better flux pinning properties in irradiated superconductor composite. This is achieved if defects with larger radius with dimension comparable to the coherence length of the superconducting material were created. On the other hand, decreased in Je indicates ineffective flux pinning and this is attributed to the overlapping of defects that break the superconducting region. Our study showed that electron irradiation deteriorated the flux pinning properties of the Bi-2212/MgO superconductor composite.
Boundary element method (BEM) is a numerical technique that used for modeling infinite domain as is the case for galvanic corrosion analysis. The use of boundary element analysis system (BEASY) has allowed cathodic protection (CP) interference to be assessed in terms of the normal current density, which is directly proportional to the corrosion rate. This paper was present the analysis of the galvanic corrosion between Aluminium and Carbon Steel in natural sea water. The result of experimental was validated with computer simulation like BEASY program. Finally, it can conclude that the BEASY software is a very helpful tool for
future planning before installing any structure, where it gives the possible CP interference on any nearby unprotected metallic structure.
Surface free energies have been evaluated from Young’s moduli and lattice parameter data of five aluminium alloys with varying amounts of stanum to determine the inter-correlation with anode capacity of the alloys. The composition containing ~1.47%Sn exhibits a minimum in the surface free energy which accounts for the decrease in the tendency of the alloy to undergo passivation thus resulting in a higher anode capacity of 2478Ah/kg at ≈ 0.08mA/cm 2 , current density. The results showed that aluminium alloy containing certain amount of stanum has lowered surface free energy, leading to reduction in passive film thickness and reduces metal/oxide bond strength. These factors in turn result in a better cathodic protection property of aluminium alloy containing stanum.
PET/CT Scan with obGa-labelled analogs is of increasing interest in Nuclear Medicine and currently
is being performed all over the world. However, such labeling procedure requires high purity and
concentrated solutions of°sGa. Here we report the purification and concentration of the eluate of
SnOi-Based obGe/obGa generators via the anion exchange method. Three different anion columns were
selected to purify and concentrate the6SGa eluat.es which are Chromafix, Oasis WAX and AG 1-X8
columns. The different anion columns were compared and evaluated in terms of their capability in
adsorption and desorption of ""Ga from, the generator. While the optimum molarity of Hydrocholric
Acid (HCl) for highest 6dGa retention was also determined starting from the ranges of fM to 7M of
HCl. The results showed that the percentage of 68Ga retention or adsorption .started to be plateau at
molarity of 5.5M for all three anion cartridges. One-way ANOVA analysis proved that there is no
significant difference between 5.5M with 6.0M, 6.5M and 7.0M which means that the retention of
gallium-68 is equal at those molarities. At 5.5M, Chromafix and Oasis WAX cartridges showed the
highest retention of gallium-68 which is 98.30%. The lowest 6"Ga retention was gained by AG 1-X8
column which is 97.07%'. While for desorption of 6bGa, the highest percentage was obtained by using
Oasis WAX cart/ridges which, is 70.f9% followed by Chromafix which, is 70.36%. The lowest desorption
of gallium-68 was obtained by using AG 1-X8 column which is only 58.56%. Therefore, from this
study, the most suitable cartridge and HCl molarity that should be applied in purification and
concentration of Gallium-68 eluate fromÿ a SnOs Based °*Ge/*Ga generator is Oasis® WAX column
with a HCl molarity of 5.5M respectively.