Ghana’s Quest for Oil and Gas: Ecological Risks and Management Frameworks

Ghana discovered commercial oil and gas in 2007, and, subsequently, commenced production in the last quarter of 2010. In the light of the potential economic boost that will accompany petroleum production, its discovery was welcome news for Ghanaians. However, oil exploration and production involve several activities that can have detrimental impacts on the ecosystem. In this paper, the potential sources of pollution in the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry and their effects on the environment are discussed. Also discussed are existing national environmental management legislations in the extractive industry, and the implementation and enforcement challenges these regulations face. Strategies to curtail the effects of oil and gas development on the ecosystem are also put forward. These include the need for government to formulate petroleum industry-specific environmental protection guidelines and appropriate regulatory frameworks. Such regulations in managing the environment should employ an integrated approach involving (i) prescription of environmental codes and setting of standards by government to be met by operators, and (ii) the need for oil companies to develop environmental management system (EMS) to ensure that they operate within the environmental standards for the industry. Administrative and institutional restructuring and reforms, as well as the provision of the necessary financial and human resources for the various environmental agencies, should be encouraged to ensure effective implementation,  enforcement and monitoring

Characterisation and identification of local kaolin clay from Ghana: A potential material for electroporcelain insulator fabrication

The aim of this work was to evaluate two kaolin clays from the southern part of Ghana, Assin-Fosu and Kumasi clays, as source clays for the fabrication of electroporcelain insulators. X-ray diffraction, differential thermal analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, chemical analyses and scanning electron microscopy observations showed the fired clay minerals have broadly similar characteristics, but with significant differences in their chemical composition. The alumina contents were determined to be 35 ± 2 wt% and 22 ± 2 wt% respectively for the two kaolins and the silica contents 49 ± 3 wt% and 58 ± 3 wt% respectively. It is concluded that Assin-Fosu kaolin is a reliable local source material for electroporcelain fabrication, while Kumasi kaolin is more suitable for making wall and floor tiles.Part of this work was undertaken at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge under the Cambridge-Africa Fellowship programme, for which AY and KMK acknowledge the Cambridge African Partnership for Research Exchange (CAPREx) for funding this study. AY and EKT also acknowledge support from the Office of Research, Innovation and Development (ORID), University of Ghana, Grant #URF/7/029/2013-2014

A study of polybromide chain formation using carbon nanomaterials via density functional theory approach

\ua9 2016 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license. We use a density functional theory approach under the local density approximation (DFT/LDA) to describe the formation of polybromide chain structures, their stretching frequency modes and charge transfer induced by the interaction of these molecules with a graphene sheet. In many cases, we find polybromides to be more thermodynamically stable than the equivalent Br2 molecular structures adsorbed on graphene sheet. This results in lower frequency stretch modes at around 170–190 cm−1. We propose that these are rarely observed experimentally due to the bromination techniques used, which introduces molecular Br2 into the carbon host material. Charge transfer with their host material means that these molecules and their associated hole charge in the neighbouring carbon materials, are then coulombically repelled from other bromine molecules which acts as a barrier to combination into polybromides. Our calculated barrier for polybromide formation (2Br2→Br4) on a graphene sheet was 0.35 eV which is an exothermic process with an enthalpy value of −0.28 eV. Therefore, thermodynamically, chain polybromide formation seems to be favourable but kinetically, is unlikely, since there is an activation barrier that needs to be overcome to give stable bromine chain structures

Development of Cassava Bioplastics for Consumer Packaging

The progressive increase in the production and use of low density polyethylene plastics for consumer packaging has led to waste disposal problems due to non-degradability of such prod-ucts after usage. The production of biodegradable polymer materials for consumer packaging in order to reduce the environmental waste menace caused by petroleum based polyethylene prod-ucts has therefore gained worldwide attention. Batch formulations of gelatinized cassava starch, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and Chitosan were casted into polymer films and characterized. The chemical structure, film morphology, tensile strength and water vapour transmission rate of the cassava bioplastics were studied. Different blends resulted in different physical properties; how-ever, starch/PVA/Chitosan batch formulations exhibited the most promising performance char-acteristics with a tensile strength of 0.014MPa and a water transmission rate of 2936.67g/m2 per day. Biodegradability tests also indicated that the non-transparent starch/PVA/Chitosan batch was 45.7% degraded after being buried in a soil sample for two weeks