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High purity of glycerol is widely used in various industries application. However, low purity of glycerol produced from the biodiesel industry as a by-product is an obstacle to convert into a high valued product. This study aims to purify crude glycerol extracted from waste cooking oil using acidification, neutralization, activated carbon adsorption followed by solvent evaporation process. The potential application of purified glycerol extracted from waste cooking oil was then observed in the production of biosoap. The physico-chemical properties of purified glycerol extracted from waste cooking oil show pH of 6.03 and light in yellow. The results showed that the biosoap produced using purified glycerol from waste cooking oil was good in terms of pH and colour. The pH was in the acceptable range which was at pH 10.50±0.055 which considered safe to be used while the colour was acceptable as it was light in yellow. However, the texture of the biosoap was a little soft which the hardness was 59.67±4.041 which its shelf life would be affected. From the results in this study, it was proven that the purification methods were significant to remove impurities from the crude glycerol extracted from waste cooking oil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water contamination that caused by heavy metals is a very common phenomenon in the industrial age. One of the popular way to treat metal contaminated water is by adsorption process using activated carbon as the adsorbent. This paper works on producing activated carbon by chemical means with impregnation ratios of NaOH:char (w/w) was predetermined at 1:1 (ACT1-1), 2:1 (ACT2-1) and 3:1 (ACT3-1) under activation temperature of 700 °C. In other to reduce cost of production, cheap raw material which is the Leucaena leucocephala was used as the precursor. The properties of these activated carbons and its potential for cadmium removal from aqueus solution was analyzed. It was found that the highest surface area was recorded at 662.76 m²/g. Four parameters were studied which are contact time, the effect of pH, initial concentration of adsorbate and temperature. The equilibrium time was achieved in 40 min treatment at initial concentrations of 30 mg/l. The adsorbent exhibited good sorption potential for cadmium at pH 8.0 and equilibrium temperature of 30 °C. Based on the results, this study had proved that activated carbon from Leucaena leucocephala biomass have the good potential to be used for removal of cadmium from wastewater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]