The importance of energy demands that have increased exponentially over the past century has led to the sourcing of other ideal power solutions as the potential replacement alternative to the conventional fossil fuel. However, the utilisation of fossil fuel has created severe environmental issues. The identification of other renewable sources is beneficial to replace the energy utilisation globally. Biomass is a highly favourable sustainable alternative to renewable resources that can produce cleaner, cheaper, and readily available energy sources in the future. The palm oil industry is essentially ideal for the availability of abundant biomass resources, where the multifaceted residues are vital for energy production through the conversion of biomass waste into value-added products simultaneously. This article discusses the utilisation of palm oil and its residues in the energy and transportation sector. Assessment and evaluation on the feasibility of palm oil and its residues were made on the current valorisation methods such as thermochemical and biochemical techniques. Their potential as transportation fuels were concurrently reviewed. This is followed by a discussion on future challenges of palm oil industries that will take place globally, including the prospects from government and nongovernment organisations for the development of palm oil as a sustainable alternative replacement to fossil fuel. Hence, this review aims to provide further insight into the possibilities of palm oil and its residues towards sustainable development with reduced environmental-related issues.

An alloy of cast iron and copper (Fe-Cu) has been developed using a stir cast process. The compositional, microstructural characterization and wear property of the developed Fe-Cu alloy were carried out with the aids of X-ray diffractometer, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and pin on Disc machine. The mechanical properties such as hardness and impact energy were investigated. Wear linear equations were generated with the aids of MATLAB linear fitting. The results revealed that the presence of copper (99% pure) in the melt of grey cast iron inhibited the formation of cementite. However, the impact energy of the grey cast iron increased with %weight (wt) of copper addition. Hence, the hardness and wear resistance of the developed Fe-Cu alloy were sacrificed. Hence, the developed Fe-Cu alloy is an excellent material which can be used in the vibration damping application especially in the shock absorber.

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A solar chimney power plant utilizes the ground as its energy conversion medium from solar radiation to kinetic energy in the adjacent air stream. In this work, the conversion capability of six different ground materials, that are potentially available in Malaysia, were studied experimentally and numerically. An experimental setup was constructed to acquire measured data. A numerical model was constructed in the FLUENT software environment to model and simulate the energy conversion process. The selected materials were ceramic, black stone, sawdust, dark green painted wood (DGPW), sand and pebble. The simulation results showed good consistency with the experimental results in terms of the air stream velocity and the energy conversion efficiency. The ceramic and black stone have shown better performance upon the other materials. In particular, the ceramic medium has shown another advantage to its solar radiation absorptivity -its heat storage capability. However, due to its availability, black stone is recommended for use as the absorbing material in the solar chimney in Malaysia and regional countries.