Zarina Zakaria
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Preferred name
Zarina Zakaria
Official Name
Zarina, Zakaria
Alternative Name
Zakaria, Zarina
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Researcher ID
36459339400

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Evaluation of various lignocellulosic biomass and cereal grains as potential spawn materials for wild Schizophyllum commune cultivation

2020-12-18 , Siti Aminah Mohd Hassan , Sam Sung Ting , Nur Zatul 'Iffah Zakaria , Norhidayah Abd Aziz , Zarina Zakaria , Nurfatirah N. , Azhar M.

Rapid mycelium growth in spawn production and on growth substrate could suppress contamination, which is significant in mushroom industry. The aim of the study is to investigate the potential of lignocellulosic biomass waste as new materials alternative to common cereal grains in producing spawn for wild S. commune cultivation on rice husk, paddy straw, and rubber wood sawdust. The fastest mycelium growth among lignocellulosic biomass was found on rice husk spawn (1.27 cm/day) and 1.98 cm/day for wheat grain. The shortest duration for substrate colonization for both lignocellulosic and grain spawn is on paddy straw, followed by rice husk, and rubber wood sawdust.

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Soil Macrofauna abundance in the intercropping of Mangifera Indica with aromatic plants

2023-12 , Iqbal Usamah , Lee Yit Leng , Noor Hasyierah Mohd Salleh , Norawanis Abdul Razak , Zarina Zakaria , Ras Izzati Ismail , Nur Lailina Makhtar

Soil macrofauna such as earthworms, beetles, ants, and centipedes are an important aspect of soil health as they help in the breakdown of plant residue to provide natural resources such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous into the soil. Monocropping practice uses heavy machinery, pesticides, and herbicides to maintain farm productivity, which negatively impacts soil macrofauna abundance. Thus, intercropping is a sustainable practice for farmers to maintain soil health with the minimal use of external input, which can do more harm to the soil ecosystem over a long period of time. The objective of the study is to evaluate the effect of intercropping mango with pandan and lemongrass on soil macrofauna density compared to mango monocrop. The field experiment consisted of mango, mango-pandan intercrops, and mango-lemongrass intercrops. Soil macrofauna was assessed using the tropical soil biology and fertility (TSBF) monolith method. The result showed that intercropping of mango-lemongrass and mango-pandan had higher soil macrofauna density compared with mango monocrop due to the presence of intercrops providing more natural resources and a better soil environment for soil macrofauna to grow and reproduce. However, further long-term research is needed to reinforce these findings.

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The Optimization of Protease Enzyme Extraction from Streblus Asper (Kesinai)

2020-12-18 , Seow Yen Yi , Rozaini Abdullah , Lee Yen Fong , Zarina Zakaria , Huzairy Hassan , Sharifah Zati Hanani Syed Zuber , Mohd Ruslan, Mahfuz Affif

Protease from Streblus asper (Kesinai) is an interesting rennet substitute and yet very few studies had been conducted so far. In the present study, the leaf extract of Kesinai had been discovered to investigate the ability of this milk coagulating enzyme. The development of the optimized conditions for enzyme extraction was analyzed by using Central Composite Design (CCD). The studied factors were ratio of sample to buffer, weight of sample (g) and homogenization time (min). It was found that a 30 g of S. asper leaves sample with the ratio of the sample to buffer of 1:1 and at a mixing rate of 2 minutes established the most desirable conditions for serine proteases extraction from the S. asper leaves sample.

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Spent Mushroom Medium Compost as a Soil Conditioner for the Initial Stage of Paddy Growth

2023-01-01 , Siti Nazrah Zailani , Ong J.J. , Zarina Zakaria , Zabidi K.A.A.

Spent mushroom medium (SMM) is one of the agricultural wastes that produce daily from the cultivation of mushroom and is usually disposed by burning or landfilling, which is a waste of biological resources. The composted SMM has the potential physico-chemical properties that can be utilized as organic soil conditioner to improve soil fertility in paddy field. Conventionally, paddy field is usually fertilized by granular urea (GU) as nitrogen (N) fertilizer. The excessive use of GU had caused several environmental problems such as soil acidification and ammonia (NH3) volatilization. To evaluate the feasibility of organic SMM compost used as soil conditioner in paddy field, analysis was carried out to measure the physico-chemical properties. Pot experiment has been conducted, and the paddy growth was evaluated after 21 days of plantation. The soil sample was applied with GU and SMM compost with the same N fertilizer rate. Soil properties were measured before and after treated with soil conditioner. The paddy growth was evaluated with plant height and root:shoot (R/S) ratio. From the result obtained, SMM compost improved both physical and chemical properties of paddy soil, significantly increased WHC and soil porosity that help reduce nitrate (NO3−) leaching and reduce NH3 volatilization. As a whole, the application of SMM compost was successfully improved the soil fertility and had the potential to replace GU as the soil conditioner, but further improvement in the management practices should be performed to achieve better plant growth.

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Effect of photodegradation on chemical characteristics and enzymatic digestibility of chicken feather keratin

2024-03-21 , Aziz F. , Zarina Zakaria , Syazwani Mahmad Puzi , Huzairy Hassan

The rapid development of poultry industry has correlated with increased production of keratin containing wastes that possessed complex morphology which difficult to degrade. UV irradiation pretreatment provide an initial stage of degradation before they are further degrade using fermentation process into ready to use protein. Untreated and treated with UV light chicken feathers morphology of fibers and cuticle cells were observed using SEM. A feather protein hydrolysate was produced by keratinolytic bacteria Bacillus subtilis under submerged fermentation. Keratinolytic kinetic is study using Michealis-Menten kinetics where Km value for treated chicken feathers with UV was 22.4591 M which is smaller compare to untreated chicken feathers, 42.3065 M. The smaller Km value shows tightly binding of keratinase and chicken feathers powder. Chicken feathers that were treated with UVC has the highest protein content about 3.19 mg/mL of protein while untreated chicken feathers only contains 2.29 mg/mL of protein.

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Morphology and Conductive Properties of Carbon Black- And Graphite- Filled Conductive e poxy Micro-porous

2020-11-24 , Anusha Leemsuthep , Zarina Zakaria , Du Ngoc Uy Lan

Conductive composite requires a well dispersion of conductive filler, which is this difficult to be achieved low content of filler for high density conductive filler. This work investigates the effect of carbon black and graphite on the morphology and conductive properties of conductive epoxy micro-porous. The conductive epoxy micro-porous was prepared by using single emulsion technique. It involved the drop of epoxy-hardener-blowing agent-conductive filler mixture into corn oil at 160 C and followed by the leaching process to remove excess corn oil. Results show the addition of conductive filler in epoxy matrix lead to increases porous structure in epoxy micro-porous. Carbon black filled epoxy micro-porous possessed smaller particles compared to graphite filled epoxy micro-porous. For skeleton density and total pore, both of the value increase with filler loading due to packing sphere effect. However, the skeleton density for carbon black filled epoxy micro-porous is higher compared to graphite filled epoxy micro-porous. For electrical conductivity, graphite filled micro-porous was higher than that of carbon black filled epoxy micro-porous.

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Introductory biochemistry for engineering and technology

2015 , Zarina Zakaria , Harbant Singh

The textbook ‘Introductory Biochemistry for Engineering and Technology’ introduces to the students the basic concepts of chemistry viewed from the perspective of biology. It focuses on the engineering and technical point of view since this science has a broad spectrum coverage stretching across medical, industrial, agricultural, and other disciplines of science. The salient features in the text include cell evolution, water as a universal solvent, bio-molecules consisting of carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids and proteins, nucleic acids, generic information as well as different metabolic pathways involved in daily life. This book is considered simple yet able to provide theoretical and applied knowledge in biochemistry and students will find the book user-friendly.

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Momordica charantia fruit mediated green synthesis of silver nanoparticles

2015 , Mst Kamrun Nahar , Zarina Zakaria , Uda Hashim , Md Fazlul Bari

The synthesis of nanoparticles (NP) is in the spotlight of modern nanotechnology. In recent years, the development of competent green chemistry methods for the synthesis of metal NPs has become the main focus of research. The biological synthesis of NPs using plant extract is currently under exploitation. For the first time, in this paper, we report the green synthesis of silver nan-oparticles (AgNPs) by reduction of silver nitrate, using fruit extracts of Momordica charantia Linn (bitter melon), a commonly found plant in southeast Asia. The reaction process for the synthesis of AgNPs is simple, cost-effective, novel, rapid and an eco-friendly route using the fruit extracts of M. charantia plant, which acts simultaneously as a reducing and tabilizing agent at room temperature. The formation of the AgNPs was confirmed by surface Plasmon spectra using UV-Vis spectrophotometer and an absorbance peak at 440 nm. To optimize the biosynthesis of AgNPs, the effect of the process variables such as contact time, silver ion concentration and fruit extract quantity were also investigated. The prepared NPs properties were characterized by UV-Vis spectrophotometer, Fourier trans-formed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and TEM analysis.

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