Green Entrepreneurship: An Opportunity for Entrepreneurial Development in Nigeria

The environment is very important to human existence, and entrepreneurship on the other hand is known to be vital in economic development. In as much as entrepreneurship is of great importance, it is necessary for enterprising individuals and firms to consider the effects and impacts of their business operations on the environment; this leads to the concept of Green entrepreneurship, green economy, sustainability and eco-friendly products, services and marketing. The green economy became a UNEP agenda since the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) held in June 2012; countries are encouraged to take advantage of the transition to the green economy which offers huge economic opportunities for entrepreneurship. For this purpose, this study looked at the concept of green entrepreneurship with the view of the opportunities it offers for entrepreneurial development in Nigeria. An exploratory approach was adopted in this study which involves the review and analysis of various research works on green economy and entrepreneurship; and the findings indicate that most developed and even some developing countries have worked hard on their compliance to green requirements according to UNEP. Considering Nigeria’s compliance, the study recommends that much needs to be done regarding environmental sustainability, green economy and green entrepreneurship

Green Entrepreneurship: An Opportunity for Entrepreneurial Development in Nigeria

The environment is very important to human existence, and entrepreneurship on the other hand is known to be vital in economic development. In as much as entrepreneurship is of great importance, it is necessary for enterprising individuals and firms to consider the effects and impacts of their business operations on the environment; this leads to the concept of Green entrepreneurship, green economy, sustainability and eco-friendly products, services and marketing. The green economy became a UNEP agenda since the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) held in June 2012; countries are encouraged to take advantage of the transition to the green economy which offers huge economic opportunities for entrepreneurship. For this purpose, this study looked at the concept of green entrepreneurship with the view of the opportunities it offers for entrepreneurial development in Nigeria. An exploratory approach was adopted in this study which involves the review and analysis of various research works on green economy and entrepreneurship; and the findings indicate that most developed and even some developing countries have worked hard on their compliance to green requirements according to UNEP. Considering Nigeria‟s compliance, the study recommends that much needs to be done regarding environmental sustainability, green economy and green entrepreneurship

Addressing hysteresis and slow equilibration issues in cavity-based calculation of chemical potentials.

In this paper, we explore the strengths and weaknesses of a cavity-based method to calculate the excess chemical potential of a large molecular solute in a dense liquid solvent. Use of the cavity alleviates some technical problems associated with the appearance of (integrable) divergences in the integrand during alchemical particle growth. The excess chemical potential calculated using the cavity-based method should be independent of the cavity attributes. However, the performance of the method (equilibration time and the robustness) does depend on the cavity attributes. To illustrate the importance of a suitable choice of the cavity attributes, we calculate the partition coefficient of pyrene in toluene and heptane using a coarse-grained model. We find that a poor choice for the functional form of the cavity may lead to hysteresis between growth and shrinkage of the cavity. Somewhat unexpectedly, we find that, by allowing the cavity to move as a pseudo-particle within the simulation box, the decay time of fluctuations in the integrand of the thermodynamic integration can be reduced by an order of magnitude, thereby increasing the statistical accuracy of the calculation.BP ICA

Experimental and modeling studies of the micro-structures of opposed flow diffusion flames: Methane

The micro-structure of an atmospheric pressure, opposed flow, methane diffusion flame has been studied using heated micro-probe sampling and chemical kinetic modeling. Mole fraction profiles of major products as well as trace aromatic, substituted aromatic, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH up to C{sub 16}H{sub 10}, e.g. pyrene) were quantified by direct gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analysis of samples withdrawn from within the flame without any pre-concentration. Mole fractions range from 0.8 to 1.0 {times} 10{sup {minus}7}. The experimental measurements are compared to results from a newly-developed chemical kinetic model that includes chemistry for the production and consumption of aromatics and PAH species. The model predictions are in reasonable agreement with the experimental data for the major species profiles and for the peak concentrations of many of the trace aromatics and PAH species. 36 refs

Experimental and Modeling Investigation of Aromatic and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Formation in a Premixed Ethylene Flame

Experimental and detailed chemical kinetic modeling has been performed to investigate aromatic and polyaromatic hydrocarbon formation pathways in a rich, sooting, ethylene-oxygen-argon premixed flame. An atmospheric pressure, laminar flat flame operated at an equivalence ratio of 2.5 was used to acquire experimental data for model validation. Gas composition analysis was conducted by an on-line gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS) technique. Measurements were made in the flame and post-flame zone for a number of low molecular weight species, aliphatics, aromatics and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) ranging from two to five-aromatic fused rings. The modeling results show the key reaction sequences leading to aromatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon growth involve the combination of resonantly stabilized radicals. In particular, propargyl and 1-methylallenyl combination reactions lead to benzene and methyl substituted benzene formation, while polycyclic aromatics are formed from cyclopentadienyl radicals and fused rings that have a shared C{sub 5} side structure. Naphthalene production through the reaction step of cyclopentadienyl self-combination and phenanthrene formation from indenyl and cyclopentadienyl combination were shown to be important in the flame modeling study. The removal of phenyl by O{sub 2} leading to cyclopentadienyl formation is expected to play a pivotal role in the PAH or soot precursor growth process under fuel-rich oxidation conditions

Optimization of the high-throughput synthesis of multiblock copolymer nanoparticles in aqueous media: Via polymerization-induced self-assembly

Over the past fifteen years or so, polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) has become widely recognized as a powerful and versatile platform technology for the synthesis of a wide range of block copolymer nanoparticles of controlled size, shape and surface chemistry. In the present study, we report that PISA formulations are sufficiently robust to enable high-throughput experiments using a commercial synthesis robot (Chemspeed Autoplant A100). More specifically, we use reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) aqueous emulsion polymerization of either n-butyl methacrylate and/or benzyl methacrylate to prepare various examples of methacrylic multiblock copolymer nanoparticles using a poly(methacrylic acid) stabilizer block. Adequate stirring is essential to generate sufficiently small monomer droplets for such heterogeneous polymerizations to proceed efficiently. Good reproducibility can be achieved under such conditions, with well-defined spherical morphologies being obtained at up to 45% w/w solids. GPC studies indicate high blocking efficiencies but relatively broad molecular weight distributions (Mw/Mn= 1.36-1.85), suggesting well-defined (albeit rather polydisperse) block copolymer chains. These preliminary studies provide a sound basis for high-throughput screening of RAFT-mediated PISA formulations, which is likely to be required for commercialization of this technology. Our results indicate that methacrylic PISA formulations enable the synthesis of diblock and triblock copolymer nanoparticles in high overall yield (94-99%) within 1-3 h at 70 °C. However, tetrablocks suffer from incomplete conversions (87-96% within 5 h) and hence most likely represent the upper limit for this approach