Food products contamination has become a huge global issue, mostly related to foodborne diseases. Morbidity and mortality are on the increase worldwide due to the increasing incidence of foodborne diseases. Peanut-based products are reported to contribute significantly to food contamination issues. It needs to be addressed well to make sure consumers are safe from these hazards. Besides, all of the scientific knowledge of food products contaminations symptoms needs to be known not only among scientists but also among consumers. Thus, the objectives of this study are to examine consumers’ knowledge level towards contaminated peanut-based products and to determine factors influencing consumers’ knowledge towards consuming contaminated peanut-based products. A survey using a structured questionnaire was carried out among 1,263 respondents who consumed peanut and peanut-based products in daily, weekly or monthly diet at Klang Valley area. The results from this study showed that about 73.9% of total respondents have inadequate knowledge and only 26.1% have adequate knowledge towards the issue of contaminated peanut-based products. The results also indicated that there are five factors (mass media, practicing standard, packaging information, experience, and official government website) that greatly influenced consumers’ knowledge towards the issue of contaminated peanut-based products. Consumers who have lack knowledge of the danger in consuming contaminated peanuts-based products are at risk of adverse health effects if consumed in a long term. Hence, the government and NGOs need to carry out campaigns that would increase awareness among consumers towards the risks of consuming contaminated peanut-based products.
Halal is an important aspect of food selection as it is one’s part to obey religious obligations and commandments. Since the halal food industry covers the farm-to-table operations, therefore unwanted practices which culminate to halal food fraud along food supply chain has become a major concern among Muslim consumers. This is because food fraud is a subjective concept, hence objective verification of fraudulent activities and the extent of fraud could be difficult to verify. The current study was therefore carried out to determine Muslim consumers’ awareness and perceptions towards halal food fraud. A total of 352 respondents from Klang Valley areas were randomly selected to be the target respondents in this study. The data obtained were analyzed using descriptive analysis, chi-square analysis, and factor analysis. The results indicated that most of the respondents (96.9%) in Klang Valley areas were aware of halal food fraud issues. The findings also showed that gender, age, education level, and occupation had significant relationships with awareness of halal food fraud. Three factors were classified as influential to Muslim consumers’ perception towards halal food fraud namely halal logo, labeling and packaging, authorities’ exposure and enforcement as well as consumer attitude. The study recommended that Islamic authorities should continuously seek ways to improve and educate consumers towards halal food fraud while the government should further strengthen their important role of enforcing law and penalties to irresponsible industry players.
Majority consumers around the world have become increasingly concern and aware about their health and food safety. Recent food crisis and foodborne illness incidents showed the needs to assure the authenticity and traceability of foods in the market especially meat and meat products. These scandals have led to negative effect and perception to consumers, food companies and both supply and demand chain. Hence, the food industry needs an excellent and reliable traceability system to ensure that consumers are persistently well protected from unconscious consumption of unsafe foods. Therefore, traceability systems can support the claims by making it verifiable. However, the awareness among Malaysian consumers is still lacking due to the inadequate exposure towards concept and the importance of traceability systems particularly in meat and meat products. The aim of this study is to determine factors influencing consumers’ preferences towards traceability systems of meat and meat products in Malaysia. Primary data were collected using structured questionnaire via face to face interview with 503 respondents in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and factor analysis. The findings of descriptive analysis showed that most of the consumers preferred using traceability systems and aware of its importance when buying meat and meat products. Meanwhile, the factor analysis results discovered six factors that influenced consumers’ preferences towards meat and meat products with traceability systems namely Halal certificate, transparency, quality, confidence, food safety and knowledge. Therefore, implementation of traceability systems could raise standards of food safety throughout the meat production supply chain. Furthermore, the society will become more confident and they can benefit from the quality of purchase and consumption. The findings from this study are also able to contribute to the body of knowledge to the producers or marketers towards food safety issues and foodborne illness that recently happened in Malaysia.
In this study polymer electrolytes composed of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as a host polymer and ethylene carbonate (EC) as a plasticizer complexed with different lithium salts, i.e. lithium tetrafluoroborate (LiBF4) and lithium triflate (LiCF3SO3) were prepared by the solution casting technique. The conductivities of the films were characterized by impedance spectroscopy. At room temperature, the highest conductivities were 4.07 × 10–7S cm–1 and 3.40 × 10–5 S cm–1 achieved, respectively from the films containing 30 wt% LiBF4 in the PMMA-EC-LiBF4 system and 35 wt% LiCF3SO3 in the PMMA-EC-LiCF3SO3 system. The conductivity-temperature dependence of the films seemed to obey the Arrhenius equation in which the ion transport in these materials was thermally assisted. Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed that the surface of PMMA-EC-LiCF3SO3 film was smooth and homogeneous, hence lithium ions could traverse through the PMMA-EC-LiCF3SO3 film more easily compared to the PMMA-EC-LiBF4 film. X-Ray diffraction studies revealed that complexation had occurred and the complexes formed were amorphous.
Band gap change in doped ZnO is an observed phenomenon that is very interesting from the fundamental point of view. This work is focused on the preparation of pure and single phase nanostructured ZnO and Cu as well as Mn-doped ZnO for the purpose of understanding the mechanisms of band gap narrowing in the materials. ZnO, Zn0.99Cu0.01O and Zn0.99Mn0.01O materials were prepared using a wet chemistry method, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) results showed that all samples were pure and single phase. UV-visible spectroscopy showed that materials in the nanostructured state exhibit band gap widening with respect to their micron state while for the doped compounds exhibited band gap narrowing both in the nano and micron states with respect to the pure ZnO materials. The degree of band gap change was dependent on the doped elements and crystallite size. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed that there were shifts in the valence bands. From both UV-visible and XPS spectroscopy, it was found that the mechanism for band gap narrowing was due to the shifting of the valance band maximum and conduction band minimum of the materials. The mechanisms were different for different samples depending on the type of dopant and dimensional length scales of the crystallites.
Leaf extracts of Melicope lunu-ankenda were chemically studied and found to contain mixtures of hydrocarbons and squalene, fatty acids and esters. A geranylated coumaric acid was isolated as the major compound. The crude dichloromethane and methanol extracts of the leaves were found to be strongly larvicidal with LC50 values below 20 microg mL(-1). This is a first isolation of p-O-geranylcoumaric acid from this plant.
In the preparation of nanostructured materials, it is important to optimize synthesis parameters in order to obtain the desired material. This work investigates the role of complexing agents, oxalic acid and tartaric acid, in the production of MgO nanocrystals. Results from simultaneous thermogravimetric analysis (STA) show that the two different synthesis routes yield precursors with different thermal profiles. It is found that the thermal profiles of the precursors can reveal the effects of crystal growth during thermal annealing. X-ray diffraction confirms that the final products are pure, single phase and of cubic shape. It is also found that complexing agents can affect the rate of crystal growth. The structures of the oxalic acid and tartaric acid as well as the complexation sites play very important roles in the formation of the nanocrystals. The complexing agents influence the rate of growth which affects the final crystallite size of the materials. Surprisingly, it is also found that oxalic acid and tartaric acid act as surfactants inhibiting crystal growth even at a high temperature of 950°C and a long annealing time of 36 h. The crystallite formation routes are proposed to be via linear and branched polymer networks due to the different structures of the complexing agents.
In this study, nano- and microsized zinc oxide (ZnO) materials were doped with different manganese (Mn) contents (1-5 mol%) via a simple sol-gel method. The structural, morphological, optical and chemical environments of the materials were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). XRD results revealed that all synthesised materials were pure and single phased with a hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO. However, at a low annealing temperature, a nanorod-like shape can be obtained for all Zn(1-x)MnxO materials. In addition, EDX spectra confirmed the presence of Mn in the ZnO lattice and the atomic percentage was nearly equal to the calculated stoichiometry. UV-vis spectroscopy further revealed that materials in nano size exhibited band gap widening with an increase of the Mn content in the ZnO lattice. In contrast, micron state materials exhibited band gap narrowing with increasing Mn content up to 3% and then begin to widen when Mn > 3%. This is because the band gaps of these materials are affected by the dimensions of the crystals and the Mn content in the materials. Furthermore, XPS results revealed the existence of multiple states of Mn in all synthesised materials. By combining the information obtained from UV-vis and the XPS valence band, shifting in the valence band maximum (VBM) and conduction band minimum (CBM) was observed. Based on XPS results, the calculation of density functional theory studies revealed that the presence of Mn2+, Mn3+, and Mn4+ ions in the materials influences the band gap changes. It was also revealed that the nanosized Zn0.99Mn0.01O exhibited a higher photocatalytic activity than the other samples for degrading methylene blue (MB) dyes, owing to its smallest crystallite size.