A review of life cycle assessments of renewable energy systems

A review of life cycle assessments (LCAs) of wind energy published in the past few years are presented in this paper. The aim is to identify the differences of the developed methodologies, in particular, the factors such as methods used, energy performance and influence of uncertainty. Each of the factors is addressed to highlight the shortcomings and strengths of various approaches. Potential issues were identified regarding the way LCA is used for assessing environmental impact and energy performance of wind energy. It is found that the potential of incorporating the quantification of uncertainty in the manufacturing phase has not been studied elaborately. A framework methodology has been proposed in this paper to address this issue

Strategies for Performing Home Management Role Expectations of Two Earner Families in Delta State

The study examined the strategies for performing home management role expectations of two earner families in Delta State of Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted. The population consisted of all working class husbands and wives in the area of study. A total of 300 samples were drawn from the target population. Out of the 300 questionnaires administered, 264 were returned upon which the analysis was based. Three research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The t-test at 0.05 level of significance was used to test the hypothesis. Results reveal that there is no significant difference in the mean responses of working class husbands and wives on their strategies and possible solutions used in the performance of their home management role expectations. The study recommended based on findings that two earner families need to work cooperatively to improve family living standard. Key Words: Home management, role expectations, earner families

Gender Justice and Economic Inclusion in South Africa

Gender justice as envisaged in the South African Constitution serves as a transformative project intended to engender an inclusive society. The historical antecedent of the transformation agenda created a situation which systematically excluded people particularly women from being productive members of society. By means of the constitutional principle of substantive equality, the court creates avenue to remedy the injustices of the past. Twenty-four years into democracy, poverty and inequality remain persistent with women bearing the huge adverse impact. The restrictions to economic empowerment faced by women are largely due to cultural practices and a labour market that are insensitive to contributions made by women particularly at the household level. Other exclusionary factors that inhibit the socio-economic development of the people include race, gender and ethnicity. The interventions made so far with a view to eliminating poverty and inequality in South Africa by way of substantive equality and affirmative action unfortunately fall short of the desired goal. This article proposes the right to development as a tool to promote and realise economic inclusivity. The Right to Development (RTD) is an appropriate process of development that prioritises the human person and by implication the holistic approach to eliminate poverty in South Africa

A hybrid Data Quality Indicator and statistical method for improving uncertainty analysis in LCA of a small off-grid wind turbine

In Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) uncertainty analysis has been recommended when choosing sustainable products. Both Data Quality Indicator and statistical methods are used to estimate data uncertainties in LCA. Neither of these alone is however adequate enough to address the challenges in LCA of a complex system due to data scarcity and large quantity of material types. This paper applies a hybrid stochastic method, combining the statistical and Data Quality Indicator methods by using a pre-screening process based on Monte Carlo rank-order correlation sensitivity analysis, to improve the uncertainty estimate in wind turbine LCA with data limitations. In the presented case study which performed the stochastic estimation of CO2 emissions, similar results from the hybrid method were observed compared to the pure Data Quality Indicator method. Summarily, the presented hybrid method can be used as a possible alternative for evaluating deterministic LCA results like CO2 emissions, when results that are more reliable are desired with limited availability of data

Vocational and Technical Education: A Tool for Sustainable Development in Nigeria

This paper focuses on the importance of vocational and technical education towards enhancing sustainable development in Nigeria. The concepts of sustainable development, challenges, strategies and the role of vocational and technical education as appropriate tools towards development of both individuals and the nation at large are discussed in this paper. This is more so as problems facing the country among others, range from unemployment, high rate of poverty and insecurity of lives and property. The strategies for re-designing vocational and technical education are also discussed. Recommendations were made that would make for sustainable human and national development. Keywords: Sustainable Development, human capital, vocational education

Assessment of the Use of E-learning Facilities by Home Economics Teachers in Delta State, Nigeria.

This is an empirical study to assess the use of e-learning facilities by home economics teachers in secondary schools in Delta State, Nigeria. The study adopted a survey research design.  A total of 100 questionnaires were distributed to home economics teachers across secondary schools in the state out of which eighty eight were retrieved. Responses were analyzed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences and MS Excel. The study finds that most secondary schools lack the necessary e-learning devices for teaching and learning. The paper further discovers that school authorities are not doing enough to support e-learning initiatives in spite of the potentials inherent in use of e-learning in the process of educational development and therefore recommends the need for school management and government authorities to brace up to this challenge through provision of modern e-learning infrastructures and active involvement of e-learning in all school curriculums. Keywords: E-learning, Information Technology, Home Economics, Educational Development

Hierarchical one-dimensional ammonium nickel phosphate microrods for high-performance pseudocapacitors

High-performance electrochemical capacitors will drive the next-generation portable, flexible and wearable electronics. Unlike the conventional all-carbon supercapacitors (electric double layer capacitors, EDLC) with high power but poor energy density, pseudocapacitors capitalize the high energy density inherent to reversible redox reactions and provide a facile means to enhancing the energy ratings of supercapacitors. The high length-to-diameter ratio and anisotropic character of 1-D architecture makes them suitable for use in energy storage. For the first time, we report 1-D microrod structures (∼ 36 nm width) of ammonium nickel phosphate hydrate (ANP mr) as a pseudocapacitor with high energy rating and power handling. To confirm the data, the ANP mr -based pseudocapacitor was subjected to various configurations (i.e., half-cell, symmetric, asymmetric, and flexible all-solid-state) and in each case it gave excellent values compared to any accessible literature to date. We clearly demonstrate that a flexible all-solid-state ANP mr -based pseudocapacitor achieved high areal capacitance of 66 mF cm ∼'2 with extra-ordinary energy (21.2 mWh cm ∼'2) and power (12.7 mW cm ∼'2) densities. This work opens doors for a facile, robust and scalable preparation strategy for low-cost, earth-abundant electrode materials for high-performance pseudocapacitors.CSIR (South Africa), the South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) and National Research Foundation (NRF) under the “Nanotechnology Flagship Programme” (supercapacitors and fuel cell project, Grant no. 69849)SP2016http://www.nature.com/articles/srep1762

Novel amperometric glucose biosensor based on an ether-linked cobalt(II) phthalocyaninecobalt(II) tetraphenylporphyrin pentamer as a redox mediator

The development of cobalt(II) phthalocyanine–cobalt(II) tetra(5-phenoxy-10,15,20-triphenylporphyrin), (CoPc–(CoTPP)[subscript 4]) pentamer as a novel redox mediator for amperometric enzyme electrode sensitive to glucose is described. A glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was first modified with the pentamer, then followed by the immobilization onto the GCE–CoPc–(CoTPP)[subscript 4] with glucose oxidase (GOx) through cross-linking with glutaraldehyde in the presence of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and Nafion® cation-exchange polymer. The proposed biosensor displayed good amperometric respose charateristics to glucose in pH 7.0 PBS solution; such as low overpotentials (+400 mV versus Ag|AgCl), very fast amperometric response time (~5 s), linear concentration range extended up to 11 mM, with 10 μM detection limit. The biosensor exhibited electrochemical Michaelis–Menten kinetics and showed an average apparent Michaelis–Menten constant (K′M) of 14.91 ± 0.46 mM over a storage period of 2 weeks

THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION USING NANO RECTENNA ARRAYS (THE MAIN FOCUS IS ON THE AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR).

This research work is concerned with the study, design and fabrication of an energy harvester for converting radiant heat to electricity using rectenna technology, with key application being on the automobiles. A review of previous works of other researchers is presented, and the main limitations hindering the realisation of a practical and functional rectenna device as well as the main factors for optimising device performance highlighted. The temperature profile of an automobile engine and exhaust was measured in order to determine the operable temperature ranges, which is a key factor when determining the optimum device dimension. The contact angles made by a 5μl drop of water on surfaces coated with different self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) were measured in order to determining the hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity of the surfaces. This gives an idea the surface energy of the dielectric films, thus giving an indication of how uniform a surface coated with such dielectric film will be. Finally, a setup for the low frequency characterisation of the diode was made and validated using ordinary diodes