Palm oil production has become one of the essential economical in Malaysia, where it is one of the world’s largest oil palm producer and exporter. The rapid growth of the palm oil mill as the primary product dominating Malaysian agriculture industries leads to the increasing of energy usage. However, the efficiency of electrical energy usage has been recognized as one of the significant factors to reduce the cost of electrical energy consumption. This research aims to determine the energy consumption of palm oil mill process and proposed improvement to its potential energy consumption. This research is limited to the energy efficiency improvement in one of Malaysia palm oil industry. The palm oil mill selection and the palm oil mill processes have been identifying in the early phases. Four main palm oil processes which are fruit bunch reception, sterilizing, threshing and pressing have been investigating to improve the energy efficiency. From the calculation of processing palm oil processes, the monthly electrical consumption was near to 127MWh. The result found that 31.49% of energy consumption can be reduced in a month by the selected palm oil mill processes by replacing the current motor to high-efficiency motor.

No abstract

Aluminium matrix composite is highly demanded in various industries due to its low density and good mechanical properties as most commonly studied for metal matrix composite. The properties of the composite be improved with the addition of reinforcement significantly such as silicon carbide, aluminium oxide, and boron carbide that can be mixed easily to metal matrix composite. The study of crystalline rice husk silica reinforced AA7075 aluminium chips on mechanical properties were investigated. The rice husk ash was burned at 1200 °C and it was characterized in the crystalline phase by conducting x‐ray diffraction test. The mechanical properties of aluminium matrix composite were obtained by microhardness and compression tests. Results of mechanical properties for the addition of rice husk silica up to 7.5 wt.% composition of crystalline rice husk silica showed increase value of microhardness and compression strength which are the highest value of 75.94 HV 0.1 and 443 MPa, respectively compared to another aluminium matrix composite. Hence, based on investigation to crystalline rice husk silica reinforced aluminium, it has good potential to improve the mechanical properties of aluminium matrix composite which were dependent to the composition of crystalline rice husk silica reinforcement in aluminium matrix composite.

Metal matrix composites based on aluminium reinforced natural waste are a well-known material industry application because they can reduce environmental pollution. This paper presents the hardness and microstructure analysis of recycling milled aluminium (AA7075) at various composition of rice husk silica. Recycling milled AA7075 reinforced with rice husk burned at 1000°C at various composition i.e., 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10 and 12.5 wt.%, were investigated. Metal matrix composites samples were prepared by cold compaction method due to the lower energies consumption and operating cost compared to conventional recycling by casting. The results reveals that the hardness of metal matrix composites samples increased at increasing of rice husk silica up to 5 wt.%. The addition of rice husk silica increased the irregularities of pore shape and it resulted in higher porosity and random pore shapes compared to unreinforced metal matrix composites samples. Based on investigation of metal matrix composites samples, rice husk silica has good potential to improve the material behavior with appropriate composition of rice husk silica to metal matrix composite.

This study is to determine the effect of graphite as reinforcement material on natural resources carbon foam on the mechanical and physical properties. Sucrose is used as carbon precursor and graphite with various concentration from 0 wt% to 0.3 wt% was added into the carbon foam. Carbon foam was prepared by using template method followed by pre curing and carbonization process. Pre curing process was take place at 250°C and carbonization process was carried out at 900°C under inert atmosphere. The morphology, porosity, density and compressive strength were characterised in this experiment. Through Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), graphite can be seen clearly embedded into the ‘window’ and fill the void space. Porosity of carbon foam decrease when the concentration of graphite increase and the density of carbon foam increase when the concentration of graphite increase. Carbon foam with 0.3 wt% graphite added shows the highest compressive strength (1.84 N/mm2) compared with carbon foam without graphite added (0.95 N/mm2). The properties of carbon foam are significantly influenced by the addition of graphite loading.