5 research outputs found

    Sustainability-Based Review of Irrigation Schemes Performance for Sustainable Crop Production in Nigeria

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    Irrigated agriculture has been identified as an important practice to achieving food security and socio-economic development in the face of rapid population growth and climatic uncertainties. In northern Nigeria, irrigation has long been identified as the key to achieving the much-desired increase in food production to meet the ever-increasing population. However, the existing irrigation schemes encountered several challenges coming from different dimensions including economic, social, environmental, institutional and technological. To attain sustainable crop production, this paper attempts to uncover the underline challenges confronting irrigation schemes in northern Nigeria that cut across sustainability pillars. The findings revealed that irrigation schemes contributed immensely toward achieving food security and improving the wellbeing of rural dwellers. However, the huge investment in large- and medium-scale irrigation schemes have resulted in massive economic losses. This could be attributed to their under-utilization, poor management and abandonment although few ones are performing remarkably well. The study recommends the need to adopt new water allocation and application methods that can improve water use efficiency, users-managers join approach (participatory), effective and competent institutions which include improved monitoring, evaluation and surveillance systems, frequent policy review to suit the situation, law enforcement, and timely sensitization and awareness campaigns

    Synthesis and characterization of branched polymers via anionic polymerization based on “strathclyde approach” / Shehu Habibu

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    Branched polymers continue to attract interest in recent years due to their favorable properties over their linear counterparts. This work aimed at developing a synthetic route towards highly branched polymers from commercially available raw materials, in good yield and devoid of microgelation, i.e., to prepare a completely soluble polymer.In particular, anionic polymerization technique has been utilized to synthesize highly branched polymers of isoprene. The polymerizations were conducted under high vacuum conditions using sec-butyllithium as initiator at 50 °C in toluene. Toluene served both as a solvent and as a chain transfer agent while tetramethylethylenediamine (TMEDA) served as the polar modifier with a commercial mixture of divinylbenzene (DVB) employed as the branching agent for the “living” poly(isoprenyl)lithium anions. The nature of the reaction was studied on the TMEDA/Li ratio as well as the DVB/Li ratio. The obtained branched polymers were characterized by triple detection size exclusion chromatography (SEC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, melt rheology, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The characterizations in terms of structural, rheological, thermal and morphological properties carried out on the branched polymers are hereby described and compared with those of the linear polymers. Broad molecular weight distributions have been obtained for the highly branched polymer products. 1H NMR spectroscopy reveals the dominance of 3,4– polyisoprene microstructure. It was found that the complex viscosities and dynamic moduli of the branched samples were much lower compared to their linear counterparts. TEM studies show that the linear polyisoprene exhibited long-range order, which disappeared with increasing degree of branching. The branched polymers were thermally stable (up to ~ 387 °C) and completely soluble in common solvents. They decomposed via multistep reaction mechanism as manifested by the nonlinear relationship between the activation energy and the extent of conversion. The results also indicated that the trend of activation energy of the branched polymers studied increases with DVB content and decrease with increasing molecular weight distribution. The average Ea were found between 260.15–32031 kJmol-1and the results showed that the average values of Ea obtained by KAS (262.34 kJ mol-1 to 314.65 kJ mol-1) and FWO (260.15 kJ mol-1 to 309.67 kJ mol-1) methods were in agreement with those obtained from the Kissinger method (265.79 kJ mol-1 to 282.75 kJ mol-1). The results conform with earlier findings by the “Strathclyde team” for radical polymerization systems. This methodology has the potential of providing soluble branched vinyl polymers at low cost using the readily available raw materials

    A Review on Industrial Effluents as Major Sources of Water Pollution in Nigeria.pdf

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    Review on industrial effluents as major sources of water pollution in Nigeri

    Recent technical and non-technical biorefinery development barriers and potential solutions for a sustainable environment: A mini review

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    Diverse biomass sources are used in advanced processes called biorefineries to create biofuels, high-value products and for industrial effluents treatment. Making a workable model for its legal execution, however, is a simple task. The issues relating to innovation and financial reasonability are the most pressing ones. The structures for gathering, storing, and harvesting feedstocks; the biorefinery conversion procedures ranging from pre-treatment, essential refining, secondary filtration, purification, item moulding, recovery and yet again utilisation of result streams. The general non-technical deployment drivers and obstacles in the fields of industrial effluent treatment such as environmental concerns, societal concerns, and legislation will be investigated. Although the complexity of treatment systems earned nearly equal high scores, high (production) costs are still seen as key deterrents to the deployment of biorefineries. Additionally deemed significant were the dearth of sustainability proof and the perception of food competitiveness. To meet the requirements of both present and future generations, it is also essential that we strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection

    Adsorption Behavior of Methylene Blue Cationic Dye in Aqueous Solution Using Polypyrrole-Polyethylenimine Nano-Adsorbent

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    In this work, a polypyrrole-polyethyleneimine (PPy-PEI) nano-adsorbent was successfully synthesized for the removal of methylene blue (MB) from an aqueous solution. Synthetic dyes are among the most prevalent environmental contaminants. A new conducting polymer-based adsorbent called (PPy-PEI) was successfully produced using ammonium persulfate as an oxidant. The PEI hyper-branched polymer with terminal amino groups was added to the PPy adsorbent to provide more effective chelating sites for dyes. An efficient dye removal from an aqueous solution was demonstrated using a batch equilibrium technique that included a polyethyleneimine nano-adsorbent (PPy-PEI). The best adsorption parameters were measured at a 0.35 g dosage of adsorbent at a pH of 6.2 and a contact period of 40 min at room temperature. The produced PPy-PEI nano-adsorbent has an average particle size of 25–60 nm and a BET surface area of 17 m2/g. The results revealed that PPy-PEI nano-composite was synthesized, and adsorption was accomplished in the minimum amount of time. The maximum monolayer power, qmax, for MB was calculated using the isothermal adsorption data, which matched the Langmuir isotherm model, and the kinetic adsorption data, which more closely fitted the Langmuir pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The Langmuir model was used to calculate the maximum monolayer capacity, or qmax, for MB, which was found to be 183.3 mg g−1. The as-prepared PPy-PEI nano-adsorbent totally removes the cationic dyes from the aqueous solution
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