This week has been a rough week for me. There are so many people testing my patience up to its limit at the exact same time. These quotes really reflects what I am feeling right now. I think I am in the midst of following the second quote :(….if nice thing doesnt work..we hv to be the mean one!!

F E Che Othman^1,2, N Yusof^1,2, J Jaafar^1,2, A F Ismail^1,2, H Hasbullah^1,2, N Abdullah^1,2 and M S Ismail^1,2

Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, Volume 36, conference 1 paper-iop-faten

Abstract

This research reports the production of precursor polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/ manganese dioxide (MnO₂) nanofibers (NFs) via electrospinning method followed by stabilization and carbonization processes. Nowadays, electrospinning has become a suitable method in manufacturing continuous NFs, thus it is employed to fabricate NFs in this study. The microstructural properties and adsorption competencies of the produced NFs were also studied. The NFs were prepared by electrospinning the polymer solution of Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and Manganese Dioxide (MnO₂) in, N, N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) solvent. The factors considered in this study were various polymer PAN/MnO₂ concentrations which will significantly affect the specific surface area, fiber morphology and the diameter of the NFs prepared. Subsequently, heat treatment is applied by setting up the stabilization temperature at 275 °C and carbonization temperature at 800 °C with constant dwelling time (30 min). Nitrogen gas at constant rate 0.2 L/min was used for stabilization and carbonization with the stabilization rate (2 °C/min) and carbonization rate (5 °C/min). The carbon nanofibers (CNFs) produced were characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Brunauer Emmett and Teller (BET) surface area and Fourier Transmission Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). It was found that the PAN/MnO₂ CNFs were successfully produced with the carbonization temperature of 800 °C. The prepared PAN/MnO₂ CNFs prepared showed an enhanced in specific surface area about two times compared to it precursor NFs.

NATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEMBRANE TECHNOLOGY 2016 (NATCOM2016)

Last week, National Congress on Membrane Technology 2016 (NATCOM2016) was held in Pulai Springs Resort, Johor Bahru on 24-25 August 2016. The theme of this conference is ‘Membranes Technology for Efficient Separation and Energy Generation’. This event was aimed to gather local expert who will highlight the novel finding and advance knowledge in the membrane technology and I personally think that it has fulfill its aim and objective to promote membrane science & technology in Malaysia and also to promote the growth of scientific and technical development in the membrane development in Malaysia.

I submitted 3 papers for the conferences, 2 oral papers and 1 poster presentation. One of my paper is considered under Advanced Materials for Membrane Technology while the other two are considered under membrane for Water & Wastewater Applications. I am also the organizing committee for NATCOM 2016 and I believed it is a great success with great participation from membranologist from all over Malaysia. In fact I just met one of my school members who are also  membranologist doing her PhD under Prof Wahab’s supervision. Hope that we can fulfill the publication in scopus index journal as per our promise to all the participants.

Working as committee members during registration

waiting for one of oral presentation by my students

Our poster presentation done by my 1st semester Master student

the presentation venue and the bunting

with long lost friend who happened to be in same field on membrane (my schoolmate in TKC during secondary school)

Organized by: ADVANCED MEMBRANE TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH CENTRE