Journal Clean WAS (JCleanWAS)

Nowadays, despite the accepted standard soil improvement methods or utilization of artificial materials such as cement and lime, these procedures are criticized due to detrimental environmental influences caused during their production process and applications; thus, such problems led to increased demand for new environmentally-friendly methods to improve soil properties. The experimental section of the study used sporosarcina pasteurii (bacillus pastteurii) to evaluate microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) on two distinct grains of sand. The effect of temperature and saturation level on the optimization of calcite precipitation produced by Sporosarcina pasteurii was also examined. The findings revealed that most bacterial activities occurred at a temperature of 35 °C and that saturation reduces the efficacy of remediated sand. The results also show that despite their particle size, remediated sands have a better performance in the durability test. These findings indicate that sporosarcina pasteurii in MICP as a bio-mediated treatment approach improved sandy soil’s mechanical characterization and improved soil characteristics, and enhanced wind erosion resistance.

Present investigation discusses the toxic effects of two organophosphorus pesticides (Malathion) and (Glyphosate) on brine shrimp, Artemia in static acute toxicity tests (24hr and 48hr). Toxicity tests were performed at a temperature of 27±1⁰C with a photoperiod of 12h light and 12h dark. Ten healthy nauplii were exposed to five different concentrations of Malathion (10, 20, 40, 60 and 80 ppm) and Glyphosate (0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04 and 0.05 ppm) along with a control group. Finney’s Probit analysis was used to determine the 24h/48h LC50 values and were found to be 58.3 and 17.3 ppm, 0.028 and 0.019 ppm for Malathion and Glyphosate, respectively. Of the two pesticides tested Glyphosate was found to be significantly more toxic to Artemia nauplii than that of Malathion (P < 0.05).

The presence of heavy metal and antibiotic resistance bacteria in the marine sediment may indicate heavy metal pollution and antibiotic abuse present in the environment. In this study, a total of 89 bacteria isolated from sediment collected in Teluk Chempedak and Pantai Batu Hitam of Pahang coastal water underwent heavy metal resistance test against Chromium, Cadmium, Nickel, Copper and Cobalt. Previously, these isolates were found to exhibit antibiotic resistance capabilities to at least 5 antibiotics tested. Heavy metal resistance pattern for isolates from Teluk Chempedak was in the form of Cr > Ni >Co >Cd = Cu while for isolates from Pantai Batu Hitam showed a pattern of Cr = Ni >Co >Cu >Cd. Further investigation on the identity of selected isolates that exhibited both antibiotic and heavy metals resistance capabilities using 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed isolates with closest similarities to Staphylococcus saprophyticus and Brevundimonas vesicularis.

A checklist for commercially important food fishes from Parangipettai, Southeast coast of India is presented (lat. 11̊ 30’ N, long. 79̊ 46’ E). This comprises 93 species belonging to 57 genera and 42 families currently known from the area, which are all of commercially valuable. We provided a synthesis of the taxonomical work carried out until now that could guide to future research.

Particulate matter (PM) is one of the primary pollutants found in the indoor environment. It can cause deterioration of the indoor air quality (IAQ) and is often linked with adverse health effects especially towards susceptible subgroup of the population like children. School children are exposed to PM inside the classroom, as this indoor PM may originate from both indoor and outdoor sources. Furthermore, ambient surrounding could be one of the major factors that contribute to its high concentration, specifically for school environment like government-subsidized schools in Malaysia whereby the schools are using natural ventilation systems to control the thermal comfort inside the classrooms. Hence the infiltration of outdoor PM into the indoor is probably high and significant. The high concentration of PM may affect the children’s health and learning performances. Due to this reason, it is important to study the effects of PM towards children. Thus, this study aims to assess the concentrations of PM and selected IAQ parameters in the school indoor environment with distinct background characteristics including residential, industrial, and rural areas. PM and IAQ parameters (temperature, relative humidity (RH), carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2)) were assessed for 8-hours duration via DustMate Environmental Dust Detector (Turnkey Instruments, USA) and VelociCalc® Multi-Function Ventilation Meter 9565 (TSI®, USA) respectively, during occupied and non-occupied time in the classrooms. Second, considering the children’s prolonged and repetitive exposure towards PM in school indoor environment and their body sensitivity, this study also screened for the prevalence of non-specific respiratory disease (NSRD) and persistent cough and phlegm (PCP) among children via structured questionnaire developed by American Thoracic Society’s Division of Lung Diseases (ATS-DLD-78-C). Higher concentrations of PM and prevalence of respiratory symptoms in the school from the industrial area were expected, due to the high concentration of PM originated from nearby industrial activities and anthropogenic sources. Hopefully, better understanding and insights on the issue were obtained through this study.

High food waste generation in Malaysia that reached up to 15, 000 tonnes per day assign for major problems towards environment, economy and social aspect. Alternative method had been studied for the past years, but composting was seen among the best possible solution to treat this matter. Composting not only has an environmentally method but it also produces a valuable end product that will benefit in agricultural sector. Further studies had been done in this paper to represent their macro and micro nutrient quality as well as their bioavailability towards plant and the analysis of data collected in both CHNS analyser and mathematical method using ultimate analysis. This study also applied enhanced composting process with its segregation, drying, grinding and standard aeration time. Each container has been rotated for 5 minutes yet different resting time was applied which are 25, 55, 155 minutes namely A, B, C and D within 2 hours period. Result shown that overall Carbon (C), Nitrogen (N) and Sulphur (S) concentration increases as the higher aeration was applied while the Hydrogen vice versa. The highest elemental percentage distribution recorded is carbon (31%) while the lowest recorded is S (0.115%). The data collected from Ultimate Analysis was seen not applicable to be use as it has the same content as food waste after composting. The compound molecular formula recorded was C29H7N5S. Regarding ratio of carbon to nitrogen results, it was found that it ranged from 5.39 to 5.71% for different compost treatment under study, where the lowest value of C and N ratio (5.39%) for sample C and the highest value (5.71%) was obtained for sample B with all has the same C/N ratio which is 6: 1 which suitable range in application of soil amendment. Therefore, this study found a significant relationship between chemical factors and compost formation which contribute to better analysis, especially to food waste management.

Atmospheric particles in the surface air including aerosol and dust were collected using high volume air sampler (HVAS) for obtaining the activity levels of 210Pb and 210Po over Malaysian waters during the EPSP’09 Scientific Expedition. The average mass concentration of total suspended particles (TSP) in maritime air was 33 ± 2 µg/m3 (ranged from 13 ± 1 to 74 ± 4 µg/m3). Based on previous literatures, it has been suspected that the haze episodes were mainly due to forest and peat bog fires as well as vehicle and industrial emissions during dry period, especially during southwest monsoon. Consequently, the activity levels of 210Pb and 210Po in maritime particles were relatively in proportion with the TSP concentrations. Meanwhile, the temporal variation of 210Po/210Pb activity ratios in the aerosol samples perhaps related to the difference of residence time airborne particles and contribution from different sources of radionuclides in which 210Pb and 210Po are not in secular equilibrium. The highest TSP concentrations and 210Pb and 210Po activities were closely related to warm and dry period during southwest monsoon.

The importance of this study is that it is deals with the Barada River pollution with hydrocarbons (crude oil and its derivatives), as well as evaluating the ability of different types of Micrococcus sp. to bioremediation of hydrocarbons. Ten strains of Micrococcus sp. were isolated from the water samples from Barada River in Damascus, and these isolated were classified depending on Bergey’s manual to four species: M. luteus, M. lylae, M. flavus, and M. antarcticus. The crude oil dependent growths of these isolates were assessed for 15 days at 30°C by monitoring the gradient fluxes in pH, optical density OD and total viable count TVC in the medium. The result was statistically supported by applying the One-way ANOVA test and the Paired sample t-test. The results showed that activity of species was best at the concentration of 2% of crude oil, and the species of M. lylae was best in dealing with crude oil, although this superiority between species was not supported at the statistical studying. In general, the different species of Micrococcus sp. have a good ability to deal with the different concentrations (1, 2 and 3%) of crude oil. And this supports research which encourages the use of this genus in the bioremediation. This research was indicated to the ability of M. lylae to deal with different concentrations of crude oil, which was not mentioned in previous research.