Background: Bush fire is a common hazard in South East-Nigeria as in other parts of the country during the harmattan. Every year, thousands of hectares of forests as well as suburban lands are severely burnt. These forest fires have been catastrophic, destroying large areas of tropical rain forests and in most cases have claimed many lives and destroyed properties worth millions of naira. However, some of these trees identified by local people and named by taxonomists as Daniellia oliveri, Anacadium occidentale, Vitex doniana, Lonchocarpus griffonianus, Gmelina arborea, Nauclea latifolia, Tectona grandis, Mangifera indica, Delonix regia, Newbouldia laevis, Azadirachta indica, Dialium guineense, Terminalia superba, Manilkara obovata and Irvingia gabonensis have proven to be fire tolerant. Aim: The aim is to establish correlations among the physical properties (wood density and moisture content) and flame characteristics (ignition time, flame propagation rate, flame duration, afterglow time, ash formation and limiting oxygen index) of these fire tolerant trees. Study Design: An item structured instrument was developed by the researchers which reflected the six points modified Likert scale of strongly agree, agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, disagree, strongly disagree and used to elicit information from the respondents who were mainly seasoned wood dealers of above 60 years of age. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was the major tool of analysis used to establish whether the tree species tolerates fire or not while correlation of the parameters was achieved by the application of R2. Place and Duration of Study: Determination of both the physical properties and flame characteristics of the tree species was done at the Research Laboratory of the Department of Pure and Industrial Chemistry, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka between June, 2018 and April, 2019. Methodology: The physical properties of the tree species as well as their flame characteristics were carried out using their standard methods. Results: The values for these parameters vary among the tree species. Correlation among the parameters indicates a determination coefficient range from 0.000 to 0.637. Conclusion: There are highly significant correlations between wood density and both ignition time and flame propagation rate as well as wood density and limiting oxygen index. There is also strong correlation between ignition time and both flame propagation rate and limiting oxygen index. Afterglow time depends on limiting oxygen index and vice versa.
The Nigerian economy depended mainly on crude oil during the era of oil boom of 1973 which lasted up till1983. Agriculture was grossly neglected by successive governments. Following the economic recession that occurred years after and due to fall in crude oil price, the Nigerian government began to advocate for economic diversification. Consequently, agriculture became the area of interest and priority for industrial raw material sources. Unfortunately, Nigeria had imbibed the tradition of importing raw materials for all her industrial productions thereby creating unfavourable balance of trade between Nigeria and her foreign trading partners thus resulting in increase in the prices of finished products. Beer production is not exempted from the price increase since its raw materials are equally imported with their attendant problems on Nigeria’s foreign exchange. One of such raw materials is hops. The hop (Humulus lupulus L.) is a perennial dioecious climbing plant of hemp (cannabis) family and belonging to the order (urticales) which are grown in the temperate regions of the world, solely to meet the demand of the brewing industry. Hop extracts give beer its bitter taste, improve foam stability and act as antiseptics towards microorganisms. The quest to substitute hops with some tropical bitter vegetables in Nigeria’s brewing industry dates back to 1983 and since that time, many have compared hop extracts with those of Nigerian bitter plants such as Garcinia kola, Azadirachta indica, Vernonia amygdalina and Gongronema latifolium. This review takes a critical look on the efforts made so far since 1983 in investigating the potentiality of using Nigerian bitter plant extracts as suitable substitute for those of hop in the Nigerian brewing industry with special emphasis on Gas Chromatography Mass–Spectrometry (GC–MS) and Gas Chromatography–Flame Ionization Detector (GC–FID) techniques. It was concluded that none of the Nigerian plants has perfect potential as suitable substitute for hops in the Nigerian brewing industry. Consequently, further research efforts in the area of mixtures/blends of extract of plant species which mimic hop taste is strongly recommended.
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