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Azhar Abdul Halim ¹, Eliani Ezani ¹, Mohd. Sham Othman ¹, Normah Awang ¹, Mohd. Ikram Wahab ¹, Anuar Ithnin ¹

Affiliations
1 Environmental Health Program, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz, 50300 Kuala Lumpur, MY

Abstract

Curcuma longa or turmeric was used as adsorbent for aluminium removal. The effects of operational factors, including pH, contact time and dose were studied, and their optimal controls were proven. Overall uptake of Curcuma longa was at the maximum when pH ranged between 5 and 9 and the optimal removal was 91.2%. Optimal removal of 95.8% was achieved at the 90^th minute for the batch experiment. A dose of 6 g/L was enough for optimal removal of 93.6%. Aluminium adsorption onto Curcuma longa was found to have a good correlation with Freundlich adsorption model contrary to the Langmuir model. Simple kinetic model such as pseudo-first order, pseudo-second order, Elovich equation and intra-particulate mixing models were employed to determine the adsorption mechanism. The adsorption kinetic study showed that the pseudo-second order kinetic was the most applicable, and this result suggests that chemical adsorption process was more dominant.

Keywords

Adsorption, Aluminium, Curcuma longa, Turmeric.

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Normah Awang ¹, Siti Nur Farahin Ehlam ¹, Kok Meng Chan ¹, Nurul Farahana Kamaludin ¹

Affiliations
1 Environmental Health and Industrial Safety Programme, School of Diagnostic and Allied Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz, 50300, Kuala Lumpur, MY

Abstract

Batik is well-known in Malaysian textile industry. It is one of the rapidly growing industries inherited from a generation to another. The manufacturer of batik industry usually discharges the wastewater containing hazardous pollutants (a mixture of chemicals especially reactive dyes, waxes, alum, resin, and sodium silicate) into the environment without any preliminary treatment. This study was conducted to assess the cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of batik industrial wastewater in three drums of wastewater on V79 cells as a preliminary study for a toxicity testing. The physicochemical properties of the wastewater were assessed. The cytotoxicity was assessed by using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay. Meanwhile, the genotoxicity of the wastewater was evaluated via alkaline Comet assay. This study found that the wastewater from all the three drums demonstrated a cytotoxic effect toward the V79 cells at various concentrations, and drum A showed lower IC₅₀ value compared to drum B and C. The IC₅₀ in drum A are 8.8%, 8.0%, and 8.4% v/v for December 2014, January 2015, and February 2015, respectively. Meanwhile, for genotoxicity study of the wastewater samples on V79 cells, the study found that the value of tail moment for all samples were lower than 2 scores with the highest score is 1.842±0.150, while the results for the negative and positive controls were 6.5±1.079 and 0.436±0.012, respectively. In conclusion, the wastewater from all three the drums in this study had a cytotoxic effect but did not demonstrate a genotoxic effect on V79 cells, indicating no DNA damage inflicted.

Keywords

Batik Wastewater, Cytotoxicity, Genotoxicity, V79 Cells.

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Nur Nabilah Mohamad Sulaiman ¹, Normah Awang ¹, Nurul Farahana Kamaludin ¹

Affiliations
1 Centre for Toxicology and Health Risk Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences, UKM, Kuala Lumpur, MY

Abstract

Construction workers are at risk of developing respiratory health problems because they are exposed to various forms of dust at the construction site. This study aimed to evaluate the exposure to respirable dust level and respiratory health of construction site workers. Personal Air Sampling Pump was used to determine the exposure to respirable dust. Meanwhile, the spirometry test was performed to assess the efficiency of the lung function. Based on independent T-test, the exposed workers showed significantly higher exposure to respirable dust level than nonexposed workers. The lung function parameters (FVC%, FEV1% and FEV1/FVC%) were lowered significantly among the exposed workers compared to the non-exposed workers. Cough and phlegm have been reported to be the most probable symptoms determined among the construction workers. In conclusion, personal exposure to high level of respirable dust increased the risk of lung function deterioration.

Keywords

Construction Workers, Cross-Sectional Study, Lung Function, Responsible Dust Exposure, Respiratory Health.

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