No abstract

Seven sampling stations were identified to determine the status of water quality based on heavy metals concentrations in Cempaka Lake, Bandar Baru Bangi within two sampling periods; June 2010 and August 2010. The objective of the study is to determine the seasonal variations in the lake water quality with respect to heavy metals contamination. Seven parameters of heavy metals were analyzed from the water samples, which were collected from the seven different sampling stations at the Cempaka Lake. They are Copper (Cu), Manganese (Mn), Lead (Pb), Zinc (Zn), Iron (Fe), Cadmium (Cd) and Nickel (Ni). The concentrations of these seven heavy metals were determined using inductively coupled plasma-mass spec (ICP-MS) (ELAN 9000). Evaluation of the concentration of heavy metals is carried out based on the NWQS classification. The results are Cu between 0.0007 to 0.021 mg/L, Mn 0.10 to 0.11 mg/L, Pb 0.001 to 0.002 mg/L, Zn 0.01 to 0.03 mg/L, Fe 1.03 to 4.41mg/L, Cd 0.0001 to 0.0002 mg/L and Ni 0.0013 to 0.014 mg/L. The data obtained from this study were analyzed statistically using the one-way ANOVA, to determine the existence of the relationship based on partial and temporal conditions of the each heavy metal. The results of the analysis of the seven heavy metals in the seven sampling stations found that the concentration of heavy metals is relatively low. Only Fe has high content and fall into class IV, followed by Mn in class II while the other five heavy metals remain in class I.

World sea level rise has an effect in the rise on high and low tides levels in coastal areas of Terengganu. Because of that, as many as 13 groundwater represented of well that located close to Terengganu coastline were sampled and analyzed. Samplings were conducted for the wet and dry seasons and also for the high and low tides at the same sampling wells to identify the variation of groundwater quality temporally. A Global Positioning System (GPS) was used to locate the exact coordinates of each sampling well. Nineteen physico-chemical parameters were analyzed from groundwater samples. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was adopted to observe the contrast of the compositional pattern among the variables and to recognize the factors that influence the parameters as an input to define water intrusion. Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering Analysis (HACA) is performed on data to group the sampling wells into a few clusters. The results show that from nineteen parameters only five has strong positive loading; EC (0.99), TDS (0.99), chloride (0.99), sulphate (0.92) and salinity (0.99) during high and low tides. The difference are BOD and DO have strong positive loading during low tide while turbidity and TSS were strong positive loading during high tide.

Hydrogen gas production via glycerol steam reforming using nickel (Ni) loaded zeolite (HZSM-5) catalyst was focused on this research. 15 wt % Ni(HZSM-5) catalyst loading has been investigated based on the parameter of different range of catalyst weight (0.3-0.5g) and glycerol flow rate (0.2-0.4mL/min) at 600 ºC and atmospheric pressure. The products were analyzed by using gas-chromatography with thermal conductivity detector (GC-TCD), where it used to identify the yield of hydrogen. The data of the experiment were analyzed by using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) in order to predict the production of hydrogen. The results show that the condition for maximum hydrogen yield was obtained at 0.4 ml/min of glycerol flow rate and 0.3 g of catalyst weight resulting in 88.35 % hydrogen yield. 100 % glycerol conversion was achieved at 0.4 of glycerol flow rates and 0.3 g catalyst weight. After predicting the model using RSM and ANN, both models provided good quality predictions. The ANN showed a clear superiority with R2 was almost to 1 compared to the RSM model.

Coastal groundwater is extremely vulnerable to saltwater contamination. This study was conducted to investigate the potential contamination of saltwater into coastal groundwater temporally. Data was obtained from PT000017 monitoring well from 2006 to 2012. Nine parameters of water quality were involved for data analyses. Two main diagrams used for data analyses are piper diagram and hydrochemical facies evolution diagram (HFE-D). All parameters were plotted to produce a piper diagram that determine the water type between different seasons. During wet season, groundwater samples are located in domain III that represent mixed Ca-Na-HCO3 water type; 2007 groundwater sample was located in domain I, represent Ca-HCO3 water type and during 2008 groundwater sample was located in domain II, represent Na-Cl water type. During dry season, groundwater samples are located in domain II that represent mixed Ca-Na-HCO3 water type meanwhile, 2009 and 2011 groundwater samples are located in domain I, represent Ca-HCO3 water type. Subsequently, HFE-D diagram was produced to determine the evolution process of salinization or freshening of coastal groundwater. In this study, all of groundwater samples were in freshening stage except during dry season 2007 groundwater sample was in the phase of saltwater intrusion.