Cellulose acetate (CA) can be converted to cellulose II through a deacetylation process using ethanolic NaOH solution. Infrared spectroscopy was used to observe the degree of acetylation by comparing the absorption intensities of CO and C−O stretches. Attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) analysis, which only measures a few microns into the fiber diameter, was compared with FTIR, which measures the whole fiber cross-section. Steady deacetylation of the whole fiber over 180 min was observed with FTIR to eventual complete deacetylation. In comparison, ATR-FTIR shows deacetylation occurring more rapidly to complete deacetylation after 90 min, indicating rapid deacetylation of the CA fiber periphery. Data were fitted to a pseudo-second order kinetic model, with high correlation (R 2 > 0.99), and it was observed that the deacetylation rate (k 2 ) observed with ATR-FTIR (−0.634 min −1 ) was twice as rapid as the deacetylation rate observed with FTIR (−0.315 min −1 ). IR observations were in agreement with the analysis of fiber cross-sections by confocal microscopy, where it was observed that changes in fiber morphology occurred with treatment time and progressive hydrolysis of cellulose acetate to cellulose II. A differential fiber chemical composition was created within the CA fiber cross-section; after 5 min, the outer regions of the fiber cross-section are hydrolyzed to cellulose II and this hydrolysis increases heterogeneously with time to complete hydrolysis after 180 min and conversion to cellulose II. These results indicate the potential to produce fibers with a differential periphery/core structure, which can be accurately designed according to the relative degrees of cellulose II/CA required for specific applications by varying the treatment time in application of this model.

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A Malay wedding ceremony is still preserved until now despite several changes that took place in the custom. Publication and comprehensive documentation on the Malay traditional attire is still not widely produced, and less attention in recording this type of clothing. The main objective of this research was to identify the styles of Malay bride’s traditional wedding as well as to categorize the styles from the year 1960 until 2016. The present study, which used the qualitative research approach. This research will be beneficial to the upcoming nation for their future references, especially to preserve the Malay traditional wedding culture.    Keywords: attire; evolution; Malay; traditional; wedding.    eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.   DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v5iSI1.2326

This research works involves the production of microencapsulated phase change material (PCM) in which paraffin wax was used as the core components with sebacyol chloride (SC) and hexamathylene diamine (HMD) as the shell component. The microencapsulated PCM was characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Thermal energy storage capacity was measured by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) while thermal conductivity was measured by thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The microencapsulated PCM were found to have a regular spherical shape with a size of 50µm while FTIR indicated that the microencapsulation process occurs due to the existence of alkyl group (C-H) and carbonyl group (C=O) in the spectra. DSC analysis shows that the paraffin start to melt at 47°C to 56°C with thermal energy storage capacity of 140.097 J/g and 114.766 J/g for sample A and sample B respectively. It was found that higher value of thermal energy storage resulting to lower thermal conductivity, which can be used as a thermal barrier in various applications.