The exhaust gas or emission from motor vehicle contains various pollutants and some of them are toxic and very harmful for human health. In the present work, we prepared an activated carbon to reduce the toxic pollutants (via adsorption process) from the exhaust gas of the motor vehicle (particularly motorcycle in this work). The activated carbon was prepared from local banana peel which considered as an agricultural waste without economic value. To prepare the activated carbon, banana peel was carbonized using furnace at 500°C. Then the resulted carbon was activated using chemical activation with ZnCl₂ and physical activation with either microwave (300 W) or furnace (700°C). The prepared activated carbon was then characterized using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) analysis. The SEM result showed that the pore of microwave induced ZnCl₂ activated carbon (AC_M) was larger than the pore of virgin char/carbon and furnace induced ZnCl₂ activataed carbon (AC_F). The FT-IR spectrum of AC_M showed some peaks at 3408.59 cm_-1, 1589.25 cm_-1, and 1093.63 cm_-1. They are assigned to O-H stretching, C=O stretching, and C-OH stretching. Additionally, the adsorption performance of the prepared activation carbon to reduce the pollutants concentration (i.e. CO and CH) from the exhaust gas of motor vehicle was investigated. The results showed that the activated carbon induced by microwave and ZnCl₂ activation (ACM) gave the best result. The adsorption or removal efficiency of gas CO reached approximately 97.64 %vol.

In this work, “green” composites made from High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) and natural fiber based date palm fiber have been prepared and studied. The effects of different loadings of date palm fibers (DPF) on the morphological, thermal and melt rheological properties of the composites have been investigated. Morphological investigation showed that the fibers were evenly dispersed in HDPE matrix at all DPF loadings. Additionally, the results of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis revealed that the addition of the DPF in the HDPE matrix has slightly increased the crystallization temperature (ΔT = ± 1.33 oC). However, the crystallinity index, Xc of the composites at all DPF loadings were lower than the neat HDPE. The decrease of Xc was approximately 10.5 – 14 %. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis results revealed that the addition of the DPF into the HDPE matrix has increased the crystallization temperature. However, the crystallinity index of the composites at all DPF loadings were lower than the neat HDPE. In term of melt rheological analysis, the complex viscosity of the composites were all higher than the HDPE matrix and increased with the increase of DPF loadings, which was due to the restriction of the HDPE chain segment movements as the amount of DPF increased.

The preparation and application of bio based plasticizers derived from vegetable oils has gained increasing attention in the polymer industry to date due to the emerging risk shown by the traditional petroleum-based phthalate plasticizer. Epoxy fatty acid ester is among the prospective alternative plasticizers since it is ecofriendly, non-toxic, biodegradable, low migration, and low carbon footprint. Epoxy plasticizer can be synthesized by the epoxidation reaction of fatty acid ester. In this study, the preparation of fatty acid ester as a green precursor of epoxy ester plasticizer was performed via esterification of free fatty acid (FFA) in high acidic Calophyllum inophyllum Seed Oil (CSO) using methanol in the presence of SnCl₂.2H₂O catalyst. The analysis of the process variables and responses using Box–Behnken Design (BBD) of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was also accomplished. It was found that the quadratic model is the most appropriate model for the optimization process. The BBD analysis demonstrated that the optimum FFA conversion and residual FFA content were 75.03% and 4.59%, respectively, achieved at the following process condition: a reaction temperature of 59.36 °C, a reaction time of 117.80 min, and a catalyst concentration of 5.61%. The fatty acid ester generated was an intermediate product which can undergo a further epoxidation process to produce epoxy plasticizer in polymeric material production.

Isopropyl alcohol is widely used as industrial chemical intermediates and common solvents in households, pharmaceuticals, food, cosmetics, and medical purposes. The high purity of isopropyl alcohol requires special separation from its impurity i.e. water due to isopropyl alcohol and water form an azeotropic point, which is difficult to separate using a conventional distillation method. The azeotropic point of this mixture is at isopropyl alcohol mole fraction of 0.68 and temperature of 353.4 K. One of the optimum methods to separate an azeotrope point is through the extractive distillation which use a third component as a solvent. Glycerol is one of the solvents which can be used as a potential entrainer in the extractive distillation. Glycerol is produced in the biodiesel production as a by-product. Moreover, glycerol is an eco-friendly chemical. In this work, the simulation of the extractive distillation of isopropyl alcohol/water system with glycerol as an entrainer was simulated using Aspen Plus. The Non-Random Two-Liquid (NRTL) model was used as thermodynamic model in the simulation. The effect of stage number, binary feed stage, entrainer feed stage, and reflux ratio to the purity of isopropyl alcohol, and reboiler-condenser duties were examined to achieve the optimum design for the extractive distillation column with less energy requirements. The simulation results showed that the optimum configurations in the extractive distillation column design are at 25 theoretical stages, binary feed stage (BFS) of 20, entrainer feed stage (EFS) of 2, and reflux ratio (RR) of 0.5 to produce isopropyl alcohol with the purity of 99.27%. The design and sizing of the extractive distillation column were also proposed in this work.