Universiti Teknologi Petronas

About: Universiti Teknologi Petronas is a education organization based out in Ipoh, Malaysia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Adsorption & Ionic liquid. The organization has 6127 authors who have published 11284 publications receiving 119400 citations.

Recent Advances of Wearable Antennas in Materials, Fabrication Methods, Designs, and Their Applications: State-of-the-Art

Abstract: The demand for wearable technologies has grown tremendously in recent years. Wearable antennas are used for various applications, in many cases within the context of wireless body area networks (WBAN). In WBAN, the presence of the human body poses a significant challenge to the wearable antennas. Specifically, such requirements are required to be considered on a priority basis in the wearable antennas, such as structural deformation, precision, and accuracy in fabrication methods and their size. Various researchers are active in this field and, accordingly, some significant progress has been achieved recently. This article attempts to critically review the wearable antennas especially in light of new materials and fabrication methods, and novel designs, such as miniaturized button antennas and miniaturized single and multi-band antennas, and their unique smart applications in WBAN. Finally, the conclusion has been drawn with respect to some future directions.

Production and Characterization of Controlled Release Urea Using Biopolymer and Geopolymer as Coating Materials.

Abstract: Synthetic polymers-based controlled release urea (CRU) leaves non-biodegradable coating shells when applied in soil. Several alternative green materials are used to produce CRU, but most of these studies have issues pertaining to nitrogen release longevity, process viability, and the ease of application of the finished product. In this study, we utilized tapioca starch, modified by polyvinyl alcohol and citric acid, as coating material to produce controlled release coated urea granules in a rotary fluidized bed equipment. Response surface methodology is employed for studying the interactive effect of process parameters on urea release characteristics. Statistical analysis indicates that the fluidizing air temperature and spray rate are the most influential among all five process parameters studied. The optimum values of fluidizing air temperature (80 °C), spray rate (0.13 mL/s), atomizing pressure (3.98 bar), process time (110 min), and spray temperature (70 °C) were evaluated by multi-objective optimization while using genetic algorithms in MATLAB®. Urea coated by modified-starch was double coated by a geopolymer to enhance the controlled release characteristics that produced promising results with respect to the longevity of nitrogen release from the final product. This study provides leads for the design of a fluidized bed for the scaled-up production of CRU.

Base catalyzed transesterification of acid treated vegetable oil blend for biodiesel production

Abstract: Biodiesel can be produced from low cost non-edible oils and fats. However, most of these sources are of high free fatty acid content which requires two stage transesterification to reduce the acid value and produce biodiesel. The acid treatment step is usually followed by base transesterification since the latter can yield higher conversions of methyl esters at shorter reaction time when compared with acid catalyzed reaction. In the current study, base transesterification in the second stage of biodiesel synthesis is studied for a blend of crude palm/crude rubber seed oil that had been characterized and treated with acid esterification. Optimum conditions for the reaction were established and effect of each variable was investigated. The base catalyzed transesterification favored a temperature of 55 °C with methanol/oil molar ratio of 8/1 and potassium hydroxide at 2% (ww −1 ) (oil basis). The conversion of methyl esters exceeded 98% after 5 h and the product quality was verified to match that for biodiesel with international standards.