Adsorption of methyl orange (MO) dye from synthetic aqueous solutions by raw Prosopis africana (RPA) was investigated using a batch system under controlled conditions of temperature, contact time, adsorbent dosage, and initial dye concentration. The point of zero charges (PZC) of raw Prosopis africana (RPA) was found to be pH 6. The raw Prosopis africana (RPA) was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) methods to confirm the adsorption of MO dye onto RPA adsorbent. The kinetic data for the adsorption process evaluated was best described by pseudo-second order in relation to other models studied. Adsorption parameters such as the effect of pH, contact time, adsorbent dosage, and initial concentration were studied for optimization purposes. The adsorption isotherm for the processes was also estimated and established. The adsorption data fitted well with the Freundlich isotherm model relative to other models tested. Thermodynamic studies revealed that the adsorption processes were exothermic and feasible in nature. This indicates that raw Prosopis africana (RPA) can be a promising adsorbent for the removal of hazardous dye from synthetic wastewater.

The inhibition effect of African peach leaves methanol extract on the corrosion of mild steel in 0.3M HCl aqueous solution at 303Kwas investigated by weight loss and polarization resistance methods. The results show inhibition efficiency decreased with temperature rise but increased with increase in plant extract concentration. Values obtained from polarization studies was relatively higher than that of weight loss at the same temperature. Also the activation energy (Ea), enthalpy and entropy for African peach methanol extract values were evaluated and found to favour adsorption of the plant extract onto the mild steel surface. Langmuir isotherm provided more accurate description of the adsorption behavior of the African peach leaves extractbecausethe R2 values obtained were relatively closer to unity when compared to others. First order kinetics was found to relatively describe the kinetics of the inhibition process, because of itshigh R2 and rate constant values, with the half-life increasing with increase in plant extract concentration. The evaluated thermodynamic parameters show the process of the inhibition to be spontaneous. The polarization Tafel plot of the extract inhibition process proved it to be a mixed type inhibitor. The studied plant extract can be concluded to possess phytochemicals responsible for the inhibition of mild steel in 0.3M HCl solution.

Essential oils are volatile compounds found in special brittle secretory structures in plants, such as glands, they have several modes of actions as antioxidant, such as prevention of chain initiation and free radical scavenging. Ocimum gratissimum is an herbaceous plant which belongs to the Labiatae familyused in the treatment of epilepsy, high fever, diarrhea, mental illness, management of the baby’s cord, to keep the wound surfaces sterile and in the treatment of fungal infections, cold and catarrh. In this study, the antioxidant activity of Ocimum gratissimum in both fresh and dry leave is accessed. Pulverized fresh leaves (500g) of Ocimum gratissimum harvested at 10:00am in a day were air dried for five consecutive days and separately hydro-distilled for 3 hours. The oil yields range from 0.42-0.91% (w/w). Analysis of the oils using GC and GC-MS revealed the predominance of hydrocarbon sesquiterpenes (16.1-44.5%) and hydrocarbon monoterpenes (39.3-43.7)). The oils were predominated by α-thujene (14.6-24.5%), β-pinene(2.3-3%), α-terpinolene (9.3%), 1,3,8-p-menthatriene (1.8-3.5%), β-selinene (19.0-32.9%), Selina-3,7(11)-diene (5.6-12%), Isocarophillene (1.2-1.7%), β-Caryophyllene (8.5%), Humulene (2.3%), γ-cadinene (1.4%), E,Z-alloocimene (2.6-13.2%) and p-cymene (6.3-9.5%). α-phellandrene was detected in significant quantity (0.8%). The predominance of α-thujene and β-selinene in the oils shows that the oils were of α-thujene and β-selinene chemotypes. The free radical scavenging activities of oils were tested against2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl(DPPH). The oils were active against DPPH regardless of the level of dryness. The most and least active oils were the oils of leaves dried for four days (95.68±1.40) and two days (41.91±2.42) at 20µl/ml and IC50 of 4.29µl/ml and 20.05µl/ml respectively.

The wreak havoc pose by herbicide on the environment and the ecosystem has become an issue of interest to the environmentalist over the past years. Up till date, adsorption methods has been demonstrated to be an excellent technique to remediate herbicides by comparison with other traditional methods due to its high efficiency, low operating and maintenance cost, simple design, insensitivity for toxic substances, suitable for most contaminated waters and the complete removal of contaminants even from the dilute solutions. This paper is aim at investigating and establishing the adsorption efficiency of activated Bambara groundnut shells in the removal of pendimethalin (PE) herbicide from aqueous solution under different experimental conditions. The pore volume analysis of the adsorbent demonstrated good quality of the activated carbon. It also had low moisture content and bulky density respectively. The activated Bambara groundnut shell (ACBGNS) was also characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis methods. The Effect of initial concentration (10 to 60mg/l), solution pH (3 to 8), adsorbent dosage (0.2 to 1.2g) and contact time (20 to 120) were optimized and reported. Adsorption capacity qe (mg/g) of PE onto ACBGNS was found to be 14.93mg/g. A comparison of kinetic models applied to the adsorption of PE on the ACBGNS was evaluated for the pseudo first-order, the pseudo second-order, Elovich and intra-particle diffusion kinetic models, respectively. Results showed that the pseudo second-order kinetic model was found to relatively correlate the experimental data well when compared to other models tested.

Kinetics, equilibrium isotherms and thermodynamics of Congo red adsorption onto adsorbent derived from Cowpea husk (Vigna unguiculata) were investigated in a series of batch experiments. The carbonized cowpea husk (CCPH) without any modification, was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) methods. Optimum removal efficiency of Congo red by the adsorbent occurred at pH of 6.0 at lower adsorbent dosage, attaining a peak value of79.55%(19.88mg/g) after 1 hour of agitating time. Findings also revealed that, among the kinetic and isotherm models tested, the experimental data fitted best to pseudo-second order model (R²= 0.997) and Freundlich adsorption isotherm (R²= 0.938). The adsorption process through the determined thermodynamic parameters was found to be feasible and spontaneous with a proposed physical adsorption mechanism. The study demonstrates that carbonized Cowpea husk can serve as an alternative low-cost adsorbent for the removal of Congo red from industrial wastewater.

Biostatistics is an important field of study, both to statisticians, medical/ health, and environmental scientists. Its application has been very useful in solving some critical health issues. In health issues like pregnancy, the birth outcome is usually expected with a lot of anxiety. This study aimed at applying Biostatistics to examine some possible factors that can influence the birth outcome in a pregnancy; ranging from the number of pregnancies by a mother to the gestational age of a mother. To achieve this aim, data on birth outcomes based on these factors were collected from the records Unit of Enugu State University Teaching Hospital. Correlation analysis was used to check if there exists an association between birth outcome and the factors considered and the degree of the association that exist among them. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA); a multivariate strategy use for classifying observations, into known groups was used to classify the Birth outcome into Stillbirth and Alive birth. From the analysis, Prior Probabilities result of 0.50 indicated that the two birth outcomes were given an equal probability. The result of this study identified infant weight to be influencing the birth outcome. The analysis result also pointed out an important process that often poses a big challenge in data collation; the case of misclassification. This study discovered that some births were misclassified as stillbirth/alive birth instead of alive birth/stillbirth.

The corrosion inhibition efficiency of expired Abarelix drug on the surface of the mild steel (MS) in 3 M HCl media was examined by weight loss, gasometric, atomic absorption spectroscopy, potentiodynamic polarization and AC impedance techniques. Gravimetric (weight loss) results showed that, protection efficiency is directly related to the expired Abarelix drug concentration and inversely proportional to the immersion time. Adsorption of expired Abarelix drug species on the mild steel in acid media was confirmed by gasometric, and atomic absorption spectroscopy techniques. Further, the decrease in corrosion current density value with an increase in the amount of expired Abarelix drug is an indication of corrosion inhibiting action of the expired Abarelix drug on the metal surface in acid system. Nyquist plots clearly indicate the inhibition role of expired Abarelix drug on the metal surface. Surface (scanning electron microscopy [SEM]) technique also showed that, morphology observed in protected MS system is different from the unprotected system.

This paper reports the evaluation of heavy metal deposits and distribution in Challawa industrial area of Kano metropolis, using atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). The results showed that lead (Pb), Cobalt (Co), Zinc (Zn) and Iron (Fe), were present in an increasing order. The comparatively high iron content in both incinerated tannery wastes, and contaminated soils has high implication on plant growth and therefore be of great concern to soil conservationist for agricultural purposes.

Sawdust, the major by-products of sawmills and an abundant wood-waste of ≤ 2mm particle size was used to produce particleboards through the binding mechanism of urea-formaldehyde, to minimize its potentials of posing environmental challenges, and study its suitability with urea-formaldehyde resin for the production of  less expensive particleboards of acceptable standard. A known mass of the sawdust (3g – 8g) was first blended with 20cm³ of molten paraffin wax, and then with 30cm³ of urea-formaldehyde resin. The blend was molded into board under electrically heated hydraulic press at 150^oC and 10 tons for 4 min. The physico-mechanical properties of the particleboard, including water absorption, thickness swell, density, tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, specific strength and hardness, were investigated using the conventional methods, and were found satisfactory with reference to the Bureau of Indian Standards and Australian standards for thin particleboards. The properties of the particleboards were dependent on the ratio of the sawdust to the urea-formaldehyde resin. The boards are easily produced and cost effective, and should be an inexpensive alternative for wood panel producers and users because, the end-use application of particleboard is subject to the properties, ease of preparation and cost.

Winged reproductive termite (Macrotermes bellicosus) was collected from Eke village in Udi local government area during their nuptial flight on March 15, 2013. Nutritional, antinutritional, and heavy metal analysis was carried out using conventional analytical methods. Comparing the results obtained from the chemical analysis of the samples with the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for each of them showed that the moisture content (53.9%), crude protein (42%), and lipid content (52.3%) were relatively high when compared with other edible insects. The ash content (4.1%), crude fiber content (0.28%), and carbohydrate content (1.32%) were low. Result of the antinutrient revealed that oxalate (79.2mg/100g) was the most abundant while phytate (0.33mg/100g) was the least abundant. Elemental analysis showed that iron (Fe) content of the sample was relatively high while calcium (Ca), potassium (K), and phosphorous (P) content were low. Heavy metals like lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) analyzed for were very low in the sample. The result shows that the winged termite may be used as an alternative source of food supplement.