The kinetics, equilibrium and thermodynamic study of the adsorption of Ni²⁺, Pb²⁺ and Cu²⁺ions from aqueous solution by the leaf of Mangiferaindica were investigated at different experimental conditions. Optimum conditions of initial metal ion concentration, pH, adsorbent dose, contact time and temperature were determined. The kinetics studies indicate that the adsorption process of the metals ions followed the pseudo second-order model with R² value of 0.9938, 1.00 and 1.00 respectively. Equilibrium studies showed that the adsorption of Ni²⁺, Pb²⁺ and Cu²⁺ ions are well represented by both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm but the Langmuir model gave a better fit for Pb²⁺ ions with R² value of 0.9950 and Langmuir constant K_L of 4.3383 while Freundlich isotherm model best fit the experimental data of lead(II) and nickel(II) with a R² value of 0.976 and 0.9973 and Freundlich constant K_F value of 4.2677 and 0.0874. The calculated thermodynamics parameters of Ni²⁺, Pb²⁺ and Cu²⁺ ions are ( ΔG^o -1182.49,-5479.1 and 613.48 KJ/mol) showed that the adsorption of Ni²⁺ and Pb²⁺are spontaneous while Cu²⁺ non-spontaneous. The findings indicate that the leaf of Mangiferaindica could be used for the adsorption of Ni²⁺, Pb²⁺ and Cu²⁺ ions from industrial effluents.

Background: Food borne outbreaks have been associated with sourcing unsafe food. Therefore, the first preventative strategy should be to source safe food. Even if the sourced food is safe, measures need to be put in place to ensure that it remains safe during the transfer, storage, preparation and serving activities that follow. An understanding of the ship food supply and transfer chain will help to illustrate the points at which the food can become contaminated en route to the point of consumption. Objectives: The study was conducted in selected sea port in the core Niger Delta to assessed the microbiological quality of food served at different ship galley to crew and passengers and compered it to standard. Methods: Samples of food were taken from three (Port Harcourt Area one (PHSP), Warri (WSP) and Koko (KSP)) seaports within the South-South zone for laboratory analysis to uncover food spoilage microorganisms capable of causing disease outbreak among ship which could result to Trans border diseases. Eleven samples of different ready to eat food were collected from the locations, which included cooked rice; fried fish, irish potato porridge, vegetable soup, griki, pepper soup, fried irish potato, salad and bread were collected randomly. The samples were prepared and analyzed using standard procedures. Mean viable counts of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria were determined, ranging from (13×103cfu/g to 78×104 cfu/g) for ready to eat food. Results: Based on the finding KSP I, KSP J and KSP K food samples had the highest bacterial contamination on food while WSP F, WSP G and WSP H food samples had the least with the following isolates Salmonella spp, Nocardia spp, Shigella spp, Listeria spp, Bacillus cereus, Leuconostoc spp, Acinetobacter spp, Acetobacter spp, campylobacter spp, Clostridium spp and Vibrio spp which revealed that the isolates were susceptible to any of these antibiotics Septrin, Chloramphenicol, Gentamycin, Tarvid, Streptomycin, Reflacin, Augumetin, Ceporex, Nalidixic acid, Ampicillin, Ciproflox, Penicillin and Erythromycin. Conclusion: Thus, ships operators and regulatory body are expected to take all practicable measures to ensure that they do not receive unsafe or unsuitable food and maintain adequate food temperature at all time.

The increasing popularity of carbon nanotubes has created a demand for greater scientific understanding of the characteristics of thermal transport in nanostructured materials. However, the effects of impurities, misalignments, and structure factors on the thermal conductivity of carbon nanotube films and fibers are still poorly understood. Carbon nanotube films and fibers were produced, and the parallel thermal conductance technique was employed to determine the thermal conductivity. The effects of carbon nanotube structure, purity, and alignment on the thermal conductivity of carbon films and fibers were investigated to understand the characteristics of thermal transport in the nanostructured material. The importance of bulk density and cross-sectional area was determined experimentally. The results indicated that the prepared carbon nanotube films and fibers are very efficient at conducting heat. The structure, purity, and alignment of carbon nanotubes play a fundamentally important role in determining the heat conduction properties of carbon films and fibers. Single-walled carbon nanotube films and fibers generally have high thermal conductivity. The presence of non-carbonaceous impurities degrades the thermal performance due to the low degree of bundle contact. The thermal conductivity may present power law dependence with temperature. The specific thermal conductivity decreases with increasing bulk density. At room temperature, a maximum specific thermal conductivity is obtained but Umklapp scattering occurs. The specific thermal conductivity of carbon nanotube fibers is significantly higher than that of carbon nanotube films due to the increased degree of bundle alignment.

Beans cocoa exploitation process generated by-products such as mucilage cocoa juice. This juice called “cocoa water” was often considered as waste because her storage is delicate at room temperature. The aim of this study was to assess self-life of mucilage cocoa juice during storage at room temperature. Consumption survey revealed that mucilage cocoa juice was self-life until 72 hours at room temperature and according to surveyed population, he possessed laxative, strengthening and anti-diarrheal properties. For all physicochemical, biochemical and functional parameters assessed during storage at room temperature, variations were irregulars. Also, mucilage cocoa juice samples have phenolic compounds contents and antioxidant activities important and high energetic values.

Energy from the sun is an ideal new energy source for power systems, in a context of sustainable development, enthusiasm for concentrated solar power technologies is developing. Accurate estimation of clear-sky radiation is needed in many engineering, architectural and agricultural applications in order to integrate solar energy into the power grid. An evaluation of the irradiance input to solar power systems is required in many applications. Clear-sky models represent the maximum input of solar power systems, which is especially useful for forecasting solar irradiance and numerical weather prediction. This work examined the application of Yang model to estimate the monthly mean clear sky normal irradiance for northern Nigeria using meteorological variables like temperature, relative humidity and solar radiation considering the shading effect of the complex topography of terrain in Norther region of Nigeria, also to know the variation of beam radiation and diffuse radiation among the selected stations and also to ascertain the significance of aerosols, water vapor, and other transmittances in the estimation of the beam and diffuse radiation in the northern atmosphere. The modeling was computed using monthly mean maximum temperature and relative humidity gotten from the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET) for the period of fourteen years (1983-1997. The beam and diffuse irradiance for the northern atmosphere is compared by estimating their mean and standard deviation. Also, detailed information about the trend of radiation in each of the selected states in the northern hemisphere of Nigeria was obtained using a graphical method of data analysis. Result reveals that the value of beam and diffused radiation getting to the earth's surface depends on the aerosols, water vapour, atmospheric Ozone, gas transmittance and Rayleigh scattering. From the result above, the maximum beam radiation and the minimum diffused radiation occur during the raining season and the minimum beam radiation and maximum diffuse radiation occur during the dry season. This is due to the variations of these atmospheric constituents (aerosols, water vapour, atmospheric Ozone, gas transmittance and Rayleigh scattering) in the northern atmosphere on these seasons.

Magnetic iron nanoparticles (Fe₃O₄) were synthesized and characterized using Fourier Transformed Infrared ((FT-IR), UV-Visible spectrophotometer, Scanned Electron Microscopy (SEM) equipped with an Energy Dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX), and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The synthesized nano catalyst was used in the transesterification of mahogany seed oil with methanol. The optimized reaction conditions gave a reaction yield of 88% at a catalyst concentration of 1.5% wt., a volume ratio of methanol to oil of 5:1, a reaction temperature of 60 °C, and a reaction time of 120 minutes. The Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles was regenerated from the mixture and reused for various circles by applying the optimum conditions obtained during the present study. The results showed that the biodiesel yield decreased by increasing the number of cycles when the regenerated catalyst was used. However, good conversion (81.9%) was obtained up to the 5th cycles. The elemental analysis of the synthesized magnetic iron nanoparticles Fe₃O₄) revealed the highest proportion of iron with 64.37 and 74.40% for atomic and weight concentration respectively, followed by oxygen with 34.27 and 24.50% for atomic and weight concentrations respectively. It could be concluded that the synthesized nano catalyst would serve as an excellent catalyst for the transesterification of vegetable oils.

Essentiality of water sustain life, and a satisfactory supply must be readily available to promote health, prolong life expectancy and prevent diseases. This study assesses the sources and quality of drinking water in Piwoyi community of Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria. Thirty-five (35) Boreholes and Two (2) Sachet water were identified sources of drinking water in Piwoyi Community. Six Samples (5 Boreholes and 1Sachet water) were selected at random and analyzed in the laboratory. The Physicochemical parameters examined include electrical conductivity (EC), pH, temperature, turbidity, dissolve oxygen (DO), chloride, total hardness, alkalinity, nitrate, calcium, magnesium, phosphate, phosphorous, sulphate, sodium, potassium, fluoride, bicarbonate, nitrate-nitrogen, nitrite, copper, iron and zinc; and Microbiological parameters include Coliforms, E-coli and Faecal Strep. The results of analysis shows significant concentration of physicochemical and microbiological parameters in the samples of water analyzed according to Nigerian Standard for Drinking Water Quality thereby makes the water unsafe for drinking. Drinking from these sources of water will pose serious health risk to the people of Piwoyi Community. Therefore, the study helps to identify the contaminated locations as well as assist to follow emerging remedial measures toward controlling the contamination source in the community. It also recommends continuous monitoring and enforcement of environmental violations, aggressive sensitization on water sanitation and hygiene; adequate purification of water at domestic level; and government support on potable water supply and establish reasonable management strategies for sustainable water quality protection toward protecting public health.

In this study, oil was extracted from Moringa seed using mechanical and solvent methods. To transesterify the oil into biodiesel, factorial design of experiment of 2⁴ was used to obtain different combination factors at different level of reaction temperature, catalyst amount, reaction time and alcohol to oil ratio, giving rise to 48 experimental runs. The oil sample was transesterified in 48 experimental runs, in each case the biodiesel yield was recorded in percentage. The biodiesel was then characterized according to ASTM test protocol. Factorial design model was developed using Design Expert 7.0, the model generated R of 0.987 and Mean Square Error (MSE) of 5.0453 and was used to predict and optimize biodiesel yield. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model from MATLAB R2016a was developed using 4 input variables and 30 runs, the remaining 18 runs were tested with the ANN model to predict and compare the biodiesel yield with the experimental biodiesel yield, the model generated R value of 0.99687 and MSE of 3.50804. It was found that solvent method yielded more oil than mechanical method, the biodiesel has good thermo-physical property, optimum biodiesel yield of 91.45 % was obtained at 5:1 alcohol/ oil molar ratio, 18.89 wt% catalyst amounts, 45 minutes reaction time and at 45 reaction temperature. The experimental validation yielded 88.33 % biodiesel. The ANN model adequately predicted the remaining 18 runs with R² value of 0.99649 and MSE of 4.914243. Both models proved adequate enough to predict biodiesel yield but ANN model proved more adequate.

We can’t stop breathing, but we can do something about the quality of air that we breathe. Clean fresh air is indispensable ingredient for a good life quality. Individuals poses the right towards expecting that the breathed air will not harm people. Thus, fighting air pollution will not only improve health outcomes, productivity, and well-being, it’s also essential toward reducing the emissions of greenhouse gas as well as fighting climate change. For examples, a third of the global population is at risk from unhealthy of ambient air pollutants concentrations, with the loss of approximately 6.4 million healthy-life-years attributed specifically to chronic exposure to ambient particulate matter. Expert panels have consistently rated air pollution as a greater health hazard than water pollution. Pollution of air is the leading source of unexplained and undiagnosed diseases, besides have remained associated with a variety of serious human health risks, and in fact, a threshold has not been established under which these pollutants exert no adverse effects. This study evaluates ambient air quality at major sawmill sites in Ilorin Metropolis, Kwara State, Nigeria. “Measurements of Air pollution were accurately carried out using direct reading, automatic in situ gas monitors; Hand held mobile multi-gas monitor with model AS8900 [Combustible (LEL), and Oxygen (O₂)], BLATN with model BR – Smart Series air quality monitor (PM₁₀, Formaldehyde) and air quality multimeter with model B SIDE EET100 (Dust (PM_2.5), VOC, Temperature and Relative Humidity)”. The outcomes disclosed among others, the average concentrations of CO, O₂ as well as other measured parameters for instance formaldehyde (HcHo) etc., they are also consistently low as well as within acceptable range in terms of National as well as Global monitoring standards for air quality indices. However, there are few exceptions for instance the average volatile organic compounds (VOCs) concentrations, PM_2.5, PM₁₀ as well as Combustible (LEL) respectively, which are higher when compared to National and Global standards. This high figure is due to pollutant amount existing in the sawmills air environment resulting from input of influents from activities of the sawmill. However, as a result, air pollution in the city of Ilorin is found to be increasingly polluted and are of major health concern because of their synergistic action. Due to the high evidences and values, it can lead to a remarkable rise in over-all figure of hospital visits/ patients’ admissions with acute respiratory illnesses as soon as air pollutants level remained high. Hence, there is the need for an aggressive control of ambient air pollution.