BUKU ABSTRAK - Universiti Putra Malaysia

Science, Technology & Engineering
Keywords: Palm olein, urea, fatty amides, lipozyme
Enzymatic Synthesis of Fatty Amides from Palm Olein
Prof. Dato’ Dr. Wan Md. Zin Wan Yunus
Emad A. Jaffar Al-Mulla, Nor Azowa Ibrahim and Mohd. Zaki A. Rahman
Faculty of Science, University Putra Malaysia,
43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
+603-8946 6808; wanzin@science.upm.edu.my
Oleochemicals are important for many chemical industries as they are derived from renewable,
biodegradable, environmental friendly, easily available and low toxicityraw materials. They are analogous to
petrochemicals which are chemicals derived from petroleum. Among of important oleochemicals are fatty amides
and their derivatives. Fatty amides have attracted a lot of attention due to their biological activities and industrial
applications such as surfactants, lubricants, and anti-blocking agents in the plastics processing industry. Fatty
amides have been successfully synthesised from palm olein and urea by a one-step lipase catalyzed reaction. The
use of immobilized lipase as the catalyst for the preparation reaction provides an easy isolation of the enzyme
from the products and other components in the reaction mixture. The fatty amides were characterised using
Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) technique and
elemental analysis. The highest conversion percentage (96 %) was obtained when the process was carried out for
36 hours using urea to palm oil ratio of 5.2: 1.0 at 40 ºC. The method employed offers several advantages such
as renewable and abundant of the raw material, simple reaction procedure, environmentally friendly process and
high yield of the product.
Nickel-cobalt Oxide Synthesised by Coprepitation for Supercapacitor Application
Prof. Dr. Zulkarnain Zainal
Chang Sook Keng, Tan Kar Ban, Nor Azah Yusof, Wan Mohd Daud Wan Yusoff and S.R.S. Prabaharan
Faculty of Science, University Putra Malaysia,
43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
+603-8946 4209; zulkar@science.upm.edu.my
Supercapacitors possess remarkable characteristic that combine the energy properties of batteries with the power discharge
characteristics of capacitors. This leads to the development of two well-known types of supercapacitors with different chargestorage
mechanisms: the electric double layer capacitance (EDLC) from carbonaceous materials and the pseudocapacitance of
redox reactions within the electroactive materials from metal oxides. Spinel nickel-cobalt oxide (NiCo2O4) originated from
the solid solutions of the nickel cobaltite system, NixCo1-xOy has great potential in the applications of the electrochemistry
field. This system has received a due attention for its good electrical conductivity, excellent capacitance value and rapid
charge-discharge reversibility. Co-precipitation has been adopted in the preparation of nickel cobaltite system to overcome
the drawbacks portrayed by conventional solid-state method such as slow reaction, high firing temperature and formation
of additional undesirable phases due to partial melting of constituting solids. Besides, chemical co-precipitation technique
is able to facilitate atomic scale mixing and produce nanosized material at lower calcination temperature. The formation of
spinel NiCo2O4 was found to start below 400 °C based on the X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. The optimum composition
for the formation of this nickel cobaltite system was 1 mol Ni : 2 mol Co without the presence of monoxides at the calcination
temperature of 400 °C. However, none of the compositions of Ni and Co calcined at 700 °C showed the occurrence of spinel.
The surface morphology of the prepared sample was investigated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and
the calcined nanocrystals at temperature 400 °C are of 34.10 nm in particle size. Cyclic voltammogram revealed that NiCo2O4
exhibits 22.4 F g-1 at the scan rate 4 mVs-1. Specific capacitance values of NiCo2O4 are retained throughout 1000 cycles with
negligible degradation of capacitance. This reveals excellent electrochemical stability of this metal oxide.
Keywords: Nickel-cobalt oxide, co-precipitation, phase formation, surface morphology, nanosized, supercapacitor behaviour
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