Nanocellulose has received increasing attention in science and industry in recent years as a nanoscale material for the reinforcement of polymer matrix composites due to its superior mechanical properties, renewability, and biodegradability. New nanocellulose sources, modifications, and treatments are under development to reduce the high energy required during production and to create a more suitable industrial-scale production process. Thus, this paper reviews plant-based nanocellulose composites and their properties, with a focus on their thermal-related characteristics. The purpose of this review is to establish for readers the impact of the incorporation of nanocellulose on the thermal and dynamic mechanical properties of nanocellulose composites. Understanding of the thermal properties is important for researchers to assess the suitability of the nanocomposites for a variety of applications in response to new and evolving societal requirements.The first NFC was produced from wood by using high-pressure homogenization without any pretreatment. 11,12 However, this method is a very energy-intensive process. Therefore, chemical treatments such as 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl radical (TEMPO) oxidation combined with mechanical and chemical

Many recent wireless sensor network (WSN) routing protocols are enhancements to address specific issues with the ''low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy'' (LEACH) protocol. Since the performance of LEACH deteriorates sharply with increasing network size, the challenge for new WSN protocols is to extend the network lifespan while maintaining high scalability. This paper introduces an energy-efficient clustering and hierarchical routing algorithm named energy-efficient scalable routing algorithm (EESRA). The goal of the proposed algorithm is to extend the network lifespan despite an increase in network size. The algorithm adopts a three-layer hierarchy to minimize the cluster heads' load and randomize the selection of cluster heads. Moreover, EESRA uses multi-hop transmissions for intra-cluster communications to implement a hybrid WSN MAC protocol. This paper compares EESRA against other WSN routing protocols in terms of network performance with respect to changes in the network size. The simulation results show that EESRA outperforms the benchmarked protocols in terms of load balancing and energy efficiency on large-scale WSNs.

Fatty acid constituents of total lipids extracted from the head, the skin and the viscera of three neritic tuna species, namely Thunnus tonggol, Euthynnus affinis and Auxis thazard, using supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) and Soxhlet extraction method were determined and compared. Saturated fatty acid (39.7-48.5%) was dominant in conjunction with monounsaturated fatty acid (21.9-26.6%) and polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) (24.1-27.9%) in all species, and the difference between methods were nonsignificant. Docosahexaenoic acid was the major PUFA, accounting for 17.0-19.9% in the head, 15.7-17.3% in the skin and 14.3-16.1% in the viscera of total fatty acids. Total oil extracted by SC-CO2 had lower free fatty acid (FFA) and peroxide value (PV) content than that by Soxhlet method. The ranges of FFA and PV were 1.8-5.0 and 1.2-2.4%, respectively. It was concluded that SC-CO2 is an effective method to extract fish oil that is rich in omega-3 fatty acids from tuna by-products.

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One of the roles of e-government portals is to provide a one-stop service to users. In order to fulfill this role, it requires collaboration with other government agencies and businesses to provide an effective one-stop center for users to access and perform various services. Current e-government portals are mostly lack of interoperability whereby users still need to access government services from various portals or websites. Interoperability is a technical requirement to achieve government services collaboration and integration. There are many challenges and approaches to achieve better interoperability in e-government portals. Architecture-based and model-based approaches are essential research areas that can improve interoperability starting from the planning stages. Architecture provides overall overview of e-government components and relationship between components. This paper systematically reviews current architecture-based approaches to find a suitable approach and its requirements to produce a better architecture for e-government portal based on the lessons learned from the previous works.

The positive attributes of excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability of biocomposites with the addition of versatile nanocellulose from agriculture wastes have provided plenty opportunities for further development of functional biocomposite in various fields. Therefore, solvent casting was selected as a reinforcement method in order to produce biocomposite comprise of nanocrystalline cellulose and PLA polymer. Modification of nanocrystalline cellulose through acetylation reaction was conducted upon reinforcement to reduce its surface polarity and hidrophilicity. Biocomposite films prepared at various unmodified (uNC) and acetylated nanocrytalline cellulose (aNC) loading were exposed to morphological (FESEM), tensile test and thermal analysis (TGA). Reinforcement of aNC shows a better dispersion in PLA polymer due to the decreasing of surface polarity, thus increasing inter-facial interaction between both materials. This is proven by greater performance of biocomposite films in tensile strength, Young�s modulus and thermal stability of aNC reinforced PLA as compared to uNC reinforced PLA. Overall, it can be concluded that these research findings can widen the scope of biocomposites research area and have significant implications for the commercial application of biomass products.

This current work focuses on the synthesis of geopolymer-based adsorbent which uses kaolin as a source material, mixed with alkali solution consisting of 10M NaOH and Na2SiO3 as well as aluminium powder as a foaming agent. The experimental range for the aluminium powder was between 0.6, 0.8, 1.0 and 1.2wt%. The structure, properties and characterization of the geopolymer were examined using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Adsorption capacity and porosity were analysed based on various percentages of aluminium powder added. The results indicate that the use of aluminium powder exhibited a better pore size distribution and higher porosity, suggesting a better heavy metal removal. The maximum adsorption capacity of Cu2+ approached approximately 98%. The findings indicate that 0.8% aluminium powder was the optimal aluminium powder content for geopolymer adsorbent. The removal efficiency was affected by pH, adsorbent dosage and contact time. The optimum removal capacity of Cu2+ was obtained at pH 6 with 1.5 g geopolymer adsorbent and 4 h contact time. Therefore, it can be concluded that the increase in porosity increases the adsorption of Cu2+.