Publications by authors named "Ee Von Lau"

We report a Technical Note on detecting nanoplastics in water samples through electrophoresis and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) instrumentation. We conducted electrophoresis experiments by immersing a QCM in a sample of ultrapure water containing polyethylene (PE) nanoplastics. It was interesting to observe that nanoplastics were attracted toward the QCM and adhered to one side of the QCM electrode.

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Unlabelled: Oil spills result in negative impacts on the environment, economy and society. Due to tidal and waves actions, the oil spillage affects the shorelines by adhering to the soil, making it difficult for immediate cleaning of the soil. As shoreline clean-up is the most costly component of a response operation, there is a need for effective oil remediation technologies.

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Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in soil have been recognised as a serious health and environmental issue due to their carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic properties. One of the commonly employed soil remediation techniques to clean up such contamination is soil washing or solvent extraction. The main factor which governs the efficiency of this process is the solubility of PAHs in the extraction agent.

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Experimental extraction tests are conducted to investigate feasibility of saturated palm kernel oil (PKO) and unsaturated soybean oil (SO) to extract polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from contaminated sand. The extraction rates and efficiencies for lowly contaminated (LC) and highly contaminated (HC) sands at temperatures of 30 °C and 70 °C are evaluated using empirical first order kinetic dissolution models. In LC sand, the extraction is dominated by the diffusion of PAHs adsorbed onto particle surfaces and the direct dissolution of PAH phase.

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The concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in soil samples were measured at five different sites within Klang Valley, Malaysia. The results showed that the total concentrations of the fourteen priority PAHs ranged from 64 to 155 μg/kg. Irrespective of the land use, all the measured soil PAH concentrations in this study were significantly lower than that found in soil samples in temperate regions.

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