The quest for alternative energy sources is gradually shifting from natural fossil fuel to alternative bio-resources especially agricultural waste products due to their reduced pollution risk and sustainability. This study seeks to investigate the suitability of plant residue pellets to produce biomass. The plant residues investigated include; 100% granulated corn cob residues, 100% granulated corn stalks and a composite of 50:50 granulated corn cobs and stalk residues. The residues were compressed at 200 MPa and pelletized using cassava starch as a binder. The pellets were experimentally analyzed using emission, ultimate, proximate and calorimetry analyses. The result showed that the cobstalk 50:50 combination had the most desirable properties. It has 0.64% nitrogen, 48.57% carbon, 0.38% Sulphur, 6.22% hydrogen, 55.81% oxygen, 3.25% moisture content, 2.20% ash content, 80.0% volatile matter, 17.80% fixed carbon percentage, HHV of 32.9 kJ/kg, an average CO2 of 563±50 PPM, an average CO of 100±50 PPM, and an average value relative humidity of 69±4%. The study reiterates that corn residues are a good bio-fuel and should be encouraged to address the current energy shortfalls.
The challenges of carrying agricultural loads and forestry products were rightly identified as essentially the rural dwellers burden. Little efforts have been made to have an adaptive mobility frame (attached to bicycle and motorcycle) to carry goods and products from the point of harvest to the point of sales (the markets), a situation that leads to systematic rot of agriculture products on the farms, leading to low revenue and productivity of the rural people. Therefore, the goal of this research is to develop an improved carriage (trailer) to bicycle and motorcycle for goods mobility in rural areas of Nigeria. The design criteria for these trailers include: lightness in weight; ease of usage; flexibility; adaptability with various bicycle and motorcycle types; low cost of engineering materials, durability and availability of materials; and it is required that the trailer carries 200 kg load on smooth road (tarred and untarred). Factors considered for this design include; weight of the rider, weight of bicycle and motorcycle, type of road, type of load and factor of safety. Three different trailer designs were developed for the bicycle namely fixed plate design (FPD), convertible plate design (CPD) and wire mesh design (WMD), while the motorcycle trailers developed are the fixed plate design (FPD) and the convertible plate design (CPD). The hitch system used for the WMD bicycle trailer was a conventional universal joint and collar attached to the trailer front frame and the hitch system for the bicycle and motorcycle FPD and CPD comprises an annular of heavy duty cylindrical cone housing and a bolt. These designs are due in part to their simplicity, availability and ease of replacement for rural dwellers. Preliminary evaluations have shown satisfactory performance based on the load carrying capacity; stability of the trailer, bicycle and motorcycle turning ability; comfort of the operator and ease of disassembling the hitch system. A proper usage of the trailers presented in this study will boost the health and wealth of farmers and other rural dweller users.
Disposal of poorly managed cassava mill effluent often results in serious environmental degradation. A low-cost treatment option was developed to alleviate this rising concern prevalent among indigenous processors. Frustum-shaped ceramic filters produced by mixing different proportions of sawdust and activated carbon with equal amounts of clay, kaolin and sherds powder and sintered at 850°C was assessed in this study. The results indicated pollutant removal efficiency ranging from 6.5 to 98.1% with the best removal efficiency obtained for chemical oxygen demand (COD) [97.9-98.1%] closely followed by biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) [71.24-77.14%] while (24.13-30.72%) and (6.5-71.7%) were obtained for turbidity and hydrogen cyanide respectively. The filter with 12.8% of sawdust, 5.1% of activated carbon, 7.13% of kaolin, 3.6% of sherds powder and 71.3% of clay gave the best removal efficiency. A maximum flow rate of 0.0035L/H (LPH) was recorded with a corresponding time of the first drop of 216 minutes. The high removal efficiency observed for some parameters, locally available construction materials and wastewater reuse options makes this a viable option for cassava mill effluent treatment, however, further study is required to optimize this technique to meet wastewater permissible limits.
Developing countries are currently facing intense drinking water shortages due to paucity of funds to set-up potable water treatment plants. This has led to the outbreak of water-borne diseases resulting in huge medical spending for the government. Employing natural biopolymers (Cottonseed (Gossypium hirsutum) [CS] extracts and de-oiled Jute seed (Corchorus olitorius) [JS]) for surface water treatment presents an alternative to improving the quality of drinking water in rural communities. This study was therefore aimed at comparing the effectiveness of the two natural bio-polymers for improving surface water quality. The oils were extracted using n-hexane as extractor solvent (with water at about 40-70°C) for six (6) hours and the seed residues were used to prepare extract stock solutions for the water treatment. Measured water samples (100 ml) were treated using the bio-polymer extracts employing different doses (10, 20, 30, and 40 ml). Physico-chemical analysis of the treated samples using CS and JS extracts yielded optimum treatment values of 7.2 and 6.89 for pH; 24.45 and 19.48 NTU for turbidity; 92.41 and 0.52 μs/cm for conductivity; 120.55 and 149.67 mg/l for BOD while 208.82 and 237.32 mg/l were recorded for COD. These corresponds to total reduction efficiencies of 14.98 and 34.31% (pH); 32.19 and 58.37% (Conductivity), 55.5% and 64.56% (turbidity), 36.86 and 60.4% (BOD) and 52.34 and 64.40% (COD) for CS and JS respectively. These results show the potentials and limitations of the two biopolymers as alternative coagulants if applied at optimum concentrations. They can be utilized to reduce waterborne diseases in rural communities lacking basic water treatment facilities.
Transportation of goods in rural communities, especially from farms, is one of the major bottlenecks experienced by rural dwellers. Bicycle and motorcycle trailers have been a major intervention proposed by several studies but, this technology has not been fully adopted and it has no detailed evaluation report. This study, therefore, evaluates the performance of different bicycle and motorcycle trailer designs. Three different designs of bicycle trailers (fixed plate design (FPD), convertible plate design (CPD) and wire mesh design (WMD)) and two designs of motorcycle trailers (FPD and CPD) were developed. Four performance evaluation tests (laden mass, forward speed, pull and haulage tests and a computer-based simulation of stress/strain analysis) were carried out. The optimum load capacity (OLC) of WMD bicycle trailer is 100 kg at a speed of 5.2– 6.3 km/hr, while that of FPD and CPD bicycle trailers are 100 kg at a speed of 3.8 - 4.2 km/hr. The OLC for the FPD and CPD motorcycle trailer was 200 kg at a speed of 6.2 – 8.4 km/hr. Static structural analysis of the trailer chassis shows that the maximum stress and strain of the trailers were 2.95 × 106 Pa and 8.22 × 10-6 mm, respectively. This study shows the suitability of the bicycle and motorcycle trailers in small-scale goods conveyance and its suitability for the rural community.
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