Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Publication
    Insights into the Quality Control and Safety Assessment of Ficus Detoidea Varieties
    An important aspect in herbal studies involved the understanding and evaluation on the quality and safety assessment of the raw materials before proceeding to herbal drug development process. In herbal standardization, the quality and safety assessment of herbal drugs offer an insight on the condition and handling of the raw material during the pre- and post-harvesting process. Thenceforth, a study was conducted to evaluate and construe the quality and safety assessment of four different varieties of Ficus deltoidea which were the Ficus deltoidea var. kunstleri, var. delotidea, var. terengganuensis and var. angustifolia. A series of quality control test and safety assessment were conducted on the leaf of Ficus deltoidea consist of total ash, moisture content, aflatoxins, total microbial content and heavy metal analysis. Overall, the analysis elucidated acceptable quality control results, with no aflatoxins and food pathogens were detected from all the samples, providing an insight on how the raw materials were handled, priorly. To summarized, the findings obtained from these studies showed that all the Ficus deltoidea varieties complied to proper pre- and post-harvesting handling process and are suitable for further herbal drug development study.
  • Publication
    Durability Studies of Solid Pellets from Torrefied Leucaena Leucocephala
    Torrefaction of Leucaena Leucocephala was performed in a fixed bed reactor at temperature of 300 C and 20 minutes holding time under inert environment. The torrefied Leucaena Leucocephala was pelletized with starch as the binder. Two parameters were investigated such as different ratio of starch addition to torrefied Leucaena Leucocephala pellets and the thickness of torrefied Leucaena Leucocephala pellets towards its durability. The ratios of starch addition to torrefied Leucaena Leucocephala pellets studied were 0, 5,10,15,20 and 25 wt%. Meanwhile, the studied thickness of torrefied Leucaena Leucocephala pellets were 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6 and 0.7 cm. It was observed that when the ratio of starch addition to torrefied Leucaena Leucocephala pellets was varied from 0-25 wt%, the durability increased steadily and the highest durability of 56.06% was achieved at 20 wt%. When the thickness of torrefied Leucaena Leucocephala pellets was increased from 0.3-0.7 cm, the highest durability of 93.18 % was achieved at 0.5 cm thickness. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis was performed on the torrefied Leucaena Leucocephala pellets of 0 and 20 wt% ratio of starch addition. SEM images show the existence of some minor pores on the surface of torrefied Leucaena Leucocephala pellet at 250X and 1000X magnifications.
  • Publication
    Pharmacognostic Evaluation of Zingiber Officinale and Curcuma Longa from Perlis for Therapeutic Discovery
    The medicinal properties of a plant are sought after for its potential therapeutic properties. Through its phytochemicals, numerous biological activities have been reported scientifically and were developed as an active pharmaceutical ingredient for biological products. Hence, this study evaluated the locally produced Zingiber officinale and Curcuma longa obtained from Padang Besar, Perlis, for their pharmacognostic properties. Quality control assessments were conducted to determine the cleanliness of the raw materials before proceeding with the pharmacognostic evaluation. The extracts for both plants were prepared through ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE) and maceration using methanol, ethanol, and distilled water. The phenolic compounds, flavonoids, and protein for each extract were investigated. The total phenolic compounds revealed that the combination of UAE and methanol had the highest value for both plant samples. On the other hand, the total flavonoid content suggests that UAE in ethanol solvent was the best approach to extract flavonoids for both plants. On the contrary, maceration techniques extracted the highest protein content for both plants. The biological testing for therapeutic evaluation based on the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl scavenging assay unraveled the methanol UAE was the potent extract for Z. officinale and C. longa, with half maximal inhibitory concentration, IC50 values of 0.39 and 0.32 mg/mL, respectively. Altogether, the findings obtained from these studies showed that Z. officinale and C. longa from Perlis showed good quality conditions, high content of phytochemicals, and potent antioxidant properties suitable for further herbal drug development studies.
  • Publication
    Kinetic and Isotherm Studies of Malachite Green Adsorption From Aqueous Solution by Calcined Eggshell Treated Orange Peel
    In this work, the ability of eggshell treated orange peel as a low-cost adsorbent to remove malachite green (MG) dye from an aqueous solution was investigated. The eggshell treated orange peel was characterized by using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analysis. From the FTIR analysis, the functional group that might be involved in the adsorption process was found to be carboxylic acid and alcohol. The effect of contact time, initial dye concentration and adsorbent dosage were also investigated by using batch adsorption mode. The results showed that the percentage of dye removal increased with the increase of contact time and the process attained equilibrium within 140 minutes with the highest percentage of MG dye removal was 98%. The percentage of dye removal was also found to increase with the increase of initial dye concentration and adsorbent dosage. The experimental result showed that 0.1 g eggshell treated orange peel was able to remove 98% of MG dye while about 99% of MG dye was removed for 250 mg/L of dye concentration. The adsorption isotherm data were well fitted to the Langmuir isotherm model with the qmax of 31.45 mg g-1. Meanwhile, the kinetic data was best presented by the pseudo-second-order model with R2> 0.99.