Initially, three samples of carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) were synthesized from neem tree material. Afterward, these samples were coated with hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) to form h-BN and CNT composite (h-BN-CNT). The essence of using h-BN (being a perfect insulator) with armchair SWCNT (being a conductor) is to create an interface between an insulator and conductor. The samples were treated under three different transition metal nanoparticles; silver, iron, and nickel. Thermogravimetric (TGA) analysis reveals that h-BN/CNT is thermally more stable with silver than iron and nickel nanoparticles. TGA profile showed resistance to mass loss at the beginning due to the higher thermal resistivity by the impurity compounds. The DFT calculation, generalized gradient approximation (GGA), and Perdew–Burke–Ernzerhof (PBE) analysis found engineered bandgap energy of 3.4 eV for the synthesized h-BN-CNT heterostructure. Because of its unique structural and electronic properties such as tunable bandgaps, the h-BN-CNT heterostructure may open new ways for manipulating excitons in the CNTs, and thus can be explored to develop various new electronic devices.

The objective of this study was to produce briquette from the mixture of pyrolysis products. Palm

Abstract. Pyrolysis experiment was conducted at operational temperature of 300 -500 o C, 2h retention time, 10 o C heating rate and N 2 flow rate of 2L/min on palm kernel shell (PKS), empty fruit bunch (EFB) and mesorcop fibre(MF) with an objective to classify the potential applications of bio-chars, precisely for coal replacement application. From the results obtained, the bio-char produced show the potentiality to be used as a fuel, soil improvement substance and in activated carbon applications. All the three bio-chars from MF, PKS and EFB could serve as a fuel and soil improvement applications, but for activated carbon applications such as coal replacement, PKS and MF bio-chars could be better because they produced bio-chars with excessive amount of fixed carbon contents (36.89 -61.67 wt % and 37.63 -59.11 wt % respectively) near anthracite coal than EFB.

This study is aimed at investigating the potentials of oil palm wastes as an alternative to fossil fuels (coal) for domestic heat generation via briquettes (solid fuels) production. In this study oil palm wastes such as empty fruit bunches (EFB), mesocarp fiber (MF) and palm kernel shell (PKS) were pyrolyzed at temperatures of 400°C for 120 min and a heating rate of 10°C min −1. The biochar and bio-oil obtained were blended in the ratio of 60:40 weight percentages and compressed at a constant pressure of 400 kg cm −2 for charcoal briquettes production. The combustion profiles, heat release of the charcoal briquettes and Malaysian sub-bituminous coal were analyzed and compared through thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Comparably, MF and PKS charcoal briquettes had higher HHV of 26.15 and 25.99 MJ kg −1 , individually than coal which has 24.21 MJ kg −1 , while EFB charcoal briquette showed the lowest value 23.93 MJ kg −1. Therefore, it can be said that all the charcoal briquettes showed a positive sign to replace coal. The maximum and minimum heat released of 0.059 and 0.048 W were obtained from the combustion of EFB and MF charcoal briquettes. It was established that in each ton of raw (dry basis) of EFB, MF, and PKS, there is 0.177, 0.212 and 0.228 tons of charcoal briquettes which correspond to 1.866, 2.055 and 2.414 MW of heat. Therefore, the findings in this study could contribute toward achieving the targeted 500 MW of green energy initiated in 2005 by the Malaysian government. Furthermore, the production of charcoal briquettes could be one of the proper methods to minimize the agricultural disposal problem in Malaysia.

A huge amount of mesocarp fibre (MF) is generated as wastes in