Asia Pacific Journal of Energy and Environment
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An Economic Evaluation of Electromechanical Components for Microhydro in Borneo – Case Study
Get PDFThis paper presents an economic evaluation using Life Cycle Cost Analysis and Rate of Return to compare Pump as Turbine and Multi Jet Pelton Turbine as an electromechanical component in a microhydro project for Kampung Longkongungan, Sabah. The aim of this paper is to support microhydro project managers in rural areas to evaluate economic advantages between two type of turbines, taking into account relevant cost components, covering a wider perspective beyond capital cost. The analysis is set in view of 15 years product lifespan with discount rate set at 5% per annum. The goal of this study is to determine which system produced the best return on investment. All relevant data have been collected through product manuals, product suppliers, and academic literature. The study reveals that Pump as Turbine and Multi Jet Pelton Turbine cumulative profit are recorded at MYR 10,065.11 and MYR 14,863.82 respectively. The Rate of Return for Pump as Turbine is at 4.34 while Multi Jet Pelton at 6.11 years. The result shows that Pump as Turbine has a low capital cost and shorter Rate of Return. However, due to low efficiency, the total return of investment is lower than Multi Jet Pelton Turbine
India’s initiatives on Improving Energy Efficiency in Aluminium Industries
Get PDFIndia is an important player in the aluminium, especially because of its abundant bauxite reserves and low-cost skilled manpower. The sector has a significant importance in the growth of Indian economy since the aluminium consumption follows GDP growth curve. Indian aluminium sector is observed as one of the energy intensive sectors with ample scope for improvements in energy efficiency as compared to world standards. The aluminium industries are upgrading themselves by adapting state-of-art technologies, which are more energy-efficient and sustainable in a highly competitive market. These initiatives are further accelerated and motivated by an innovative incentivization scheme (called Perform, Achieve and Trade) of Govt. of India. Currently, the first phase (2012-15) is under implementation, and an unexpected movement towards energy efficiency is envisaged as a result that will ultimately lead towards production of low carbon aluminium for the society.
 
Wind Power potential in Kigali and Western provinces of Rwanda
Get PDFWind speed and wind direction are the most important characteristics for assessing wind energy potential of a location using suitable probability density functions. In this investigation, a hybrid-Weibull probability density function was used to analyze data from Kigali, Gisenyi, and Kamembe stations. Kigali is located in the Eastern side of Rwanda while Gisenyi and Kamembe are to the West. On-site hourly wind speed and wind direction data for the year 2007 were analyzed using Matlab programmes. The annual mean wind speed for Kigali, Gisenyi, and Kamembe sites were determined as 2.36m/s, 2.95m/s and 2.97m/s respectively, while corresponding dominant wind directions for the stations were , and respectively. The annual wind power density of Kigali was found to be while the power densities for Gisenyi and Kamembe were determined as and . It is clear, the investigated regions are dominated by low wind speeds thus are suitable for small-scale wind power generation especially at Kamembe site
Evaluation of Antibacterial Activity and Phytochemical Constituents of Leaf Extract of Lippia adoensis
Get PDFThere are quite large numbers of traditionally used medicinal plants that are used to treat skin disorder in the ethno medical system of Ethiopia. Medicinal plants namely L. adoensis, was screened for antibacterial activity against different strains of bacteria which are known to cause various types of skin infections and food poisoning
Anti bacterial effect of the plant species was evaluated against different bacterial strains. The leaves of plant species were extracted by maceration and soxhelt extraction technique for preparation of crude and fractional extract respectively. And anti bacterial screening of different concentration of both crude and fractional extract of the plant species were determined using agar well diffusion method. The test organisms were one gram positive (S.aures) and three gram negative (Salmonella typhi, E.coli and P.aeruginosa) standard organisms.
The results of the initial antibacterial screening test indicated the potential of these herbal drugs in treating bacterial infections of the skin and food poisoning. Among the different fractions (petroleum ether, chloroform, acetone and methanol) tested for antibacterial activity, the non-polar fractions were found to be more active than the polar fractions. The Phytochemical screening tests carried out on L. adoensis indicated the presence of tannins, flavonoids and saponins.
Different extracts L.adoensis were showed significant antibacterial activity against the S.aueres, P.aeroginosa, E.coli and S.typhi. Hence further study is recommended to identify the specific active ingredient and potential formulation of effective antibiotic.
 
Fast Model-based Protein Homology Discovery without Alignment
Get PDFThe need for quick gene categorization tools is growing as more genomes are sequenced. To evaluate a newly sequenced genome, the genes must first be identified and translated into amino acid sequences, which are then categorized into structural or functional classes. Protein homology detection using sequence alignment algorithms is the most effective way for protein categorization. Discriminative approaches such as support vector machines (SVMs) and position-specific scoring matrices (PSSM) derived from PSI-BLAST have recently been used to improve alignment algorithms. However, if a fresh sequence is being aligned, alignment algorithms take time. must be compared to a large number of previously published sequences — the same is true for SVMs. Building a PSSM for the PSSM is even more time-consuming than a fresh order It would take roughly 25 hours to implement the best-performing approaches to classify the sequences on today\u27s computers. Describing a novel genome (20, 000 genes) as belonging to one single organism. There are hundreds of classes to choose from, though. Another flaw with alignment algorithms is that they do not construct a model of the positive class, instead of measuring the mutual distance between sequences or profiles. Only multiple alignments and hidden Markov models are common classification approaches for creating a positive class model, but they have poor classification performance. A model\u27s advantage is that it may be evaluated for chemical features that are shared by all members of the class to get fresh insights into protein function and structure. We used LSTM to solve a well-known remote protein homology detection benchmark, in which a protein must be categorized as a member of the SCOP superfamily. LSTM achieves state-of-the-art classification performance while being significantly faster than other algorithms with similar classification performance. LSTM is five orders of magnitude quicker than the quickest SVM-based approaches and two orders of magnitude faster than methods that perform somewhat better in classification (which, however, have lower classification performance than LSTM). We applied LSTM to PROSITE classes and analyzed the derived patterns to test the modeling capabilities of the algorithm. Because it does not require established similarity metrics like BLOSUM or PAM matrices, LSTM is complementary to alignment-based techniques. The PROSITE motif was retrieved by LSTM in 8 out of 15 classes. In the remaining seven examples, alternative motifs are developed that, on average, outperform the PROSITE motifs in categorization
Application of Electrical Resistivity in Buildings Foundation Investigation in Ibese Southwestern Nigeria
Get PDFApplication of geophysical investigation has been carried out using Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) at the proposed building site in Ibese Southwest Nigeria to determine the geophysical parameters that can be used to evaluate the structural competence of the subsurface geological characteristics of the site for construction purposes and building development. The Schlumberger configuration was used for the data acquisition. One-dimensional numerical inversion of individual DC resistivity was used to enhance the processing of the results for better achievement of the aim of the study. Models obtained from the 2D inversion of each VES were used for construction of geo-electric sections which exhibit the main geo-electric characteristics of the geological units present in the area. The interpretation results showed that the geo-electric sections consist of three-four layers namely: topsoil, pebble clay, limestone and sand/limestone. The layer resistivities and thicknesses range from 11 - 404 Ohm-m/0.4 - 1.5 m, 2-210 Ohm-m/ 0.8 - 9.2m and 33 - 160Ohm-m respectively. The investigation revealed that the sand/limestone litho unit is to be the most competent for shallow foundation for small to medium engineering structures.
 
Petrography and Petrochemical Characteristics of Rare Metal Pegmatites around Oro, Southwestern Nigeria
Get PDFPetrographic and geochemical evaluation of pegmatite bodies occurring as discontinuous dykes have been studied in Oro area of southwestern Nigeria, with a view to determine the compositional characteristics that may be related to Ta-Nb mineralization potentials. They are found intruding semi discordantly, the older assemblages of quartz mica schist and granite gneiss.
A total of twenty-eight samples comprising whole rock pegmatites and eluvial soils were analyzed for major, trace and rare earth elements using (ICP-AES) geochemical method which show the pegmatite samples to be generally highly siliceous with SiO2 values ranging from (71.49-97.77%) with an average of 86.43% in the whole rock samples, and it also ranges from (41.88-57.99%) with an average of 48.43% in the eluvial soil samples, while Al2O3 content is as high as 25.87% in the eluvial soil samples and 6.86% in the whole rock samples depicting the complexity of the pegmatite rock.
Variation plots of K/Rb versus Rb, Ta versus Rb, Ta versus Nb, Ta versus K/Cs, Ta versus Cs+Rb and Ta versus Cs discriminant plot indicate the potentials of rare metal mineralization
Determination of energy gain time dependent in D+T mixture with calculating total energy deposited of deuteron beam in hot spot
Get PDFThe fast ignition (FI) mechanism, in which a pellet containing the thermonuclear fuel is first compressed by a nanosecond laser pulse, and then irradiated by an intense "ignition" beam, initiated by a high power picosecond laser pulse, is one of the promising approaches to the realization of the inertial confinement fusion (ICF). If the ignition beam is composed of deuterons, an additional energy is delivered to the target, coming from fusion reactions of the beam-target type, directly initiated by particles from the ignition beam .In this work, we choose the D+T fuel and at first step we compute the average reactivity in terms of temperature for first time at second step we use the obtained results of step one and calculate the total deposited energy of deuteron beam inside the target fuel at available physical condition then in third step we introduced the dynamical balance equation of D+T mixture and solve these nonlinear differential coupled equations versus time .In forth step we compute the power density and energy gain under physical optimum conditions and at final step we concluded that maximum energy deposited in the target from D+T and D+D reaction are equal to to19269.39061 keV and 39198.58043 keV respectively.
 
An Evaluation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) activities in Bangladesh
Get PDFFor resolving adverse impact in water sector (such as severe flooding, sedimentation of river channels, erosion of the riverbanks, scarcity of water during the dry season, saline intrusion and environmental degradation in particular in the Southwest, cyclones and tidal surges in coastal areas, heavy arsenic contamination of groundwater etc.) in Bangladesh, lot of studies and programs have been under taken by the Government of Bangladesh during the last fifty years. Current global climate change and upstream withdrawal of water have made the water related problems more critical. Under these circumstances, water resources management needs more comprehensive and integrated approaches. Early day’s water management in Bangladesh were mainly involved to Flood Control Drainage and Irrigation (FCDI) project which caused detrimental effects of other sectors. The issue of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has been increasingly highlighted after the 1990\u27s. The Flood Action Plan (FAP, 1989-95), Bangladesh Water and Flood Management Strategy (BWFMS, 1995), The Ganges Water Treaty (1996), National Policy for Safe Water Supply and Sanitation (1998), National Water Policy (NWPo, 1999), Guidelines for Participatory Water Management (GPWM, 2000), National Water Management Plan (NWMP, 2004), National Water Resources Database (NWRD, 2001), Regional Technical Assistance (RETA, 2009), Bangladesh Water Act (DBWA, 2013)are the major examples of IWRM practice in Bangladesh.For the evaluation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) activities in Bangladesh, the three IWRM tools i.e. ‘Enabling Environment’, ‘Institutional Framework’ and ‘Management Instrument’ have been used as a methodology. Lots of Online Questionnaire has been done to the National Water Expertise for getting more information and strengthening the scope of work. Although lot of constraints are existing to develop IWRM plan in Bangladesh, yet the existing policy, plan, guideline, law, institution and information system provide a sound basis for the IWRM implementation in Bangladesh considering the principals of IWRM i.e. efficiency, equity, environmental sustainability. The study has shown that, the progress towards Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in Bangladesh has been good. Much remains to be done. Nevertheless, advancing IWRM is a process of incremental steps and the Bangladesh water-related sector is clearly moving in the right direction towards the IWRM plan. Finally the study has drawn recommendations for effective implementation of IWRM activities in Bangladesh.
 
A Review on Chemical Synthesis Process of Platinum Nanoparticles
Get PDFNanoparticles are key components in the advancement of future energy technologies; thus, strategies for preparing nanoparticles in large volume by techniques that are cost-effective are required. In the substitution of fossil-fuels by renewable energy resources, nanometersized particles play a key role for synthesizing energy vectors from varying and heterogeneous biomass feedstocks. They are extensively used in reformers for the production of hydrogen from solid, liquid, or gaseous energy carriers. Catalyst activities depend critically on their size-dependent properties. Nanoparticles are further indispensable as electrocatalysts in fuel cells and other electrochemical converters. The desire to increase the activity per unit area, and decrease the necessary amount of the expensive catalytic standard, It is clear that performance and commercialization of fuel cells depend on electrode materials performance. The application of pt nanomaterials as an electrode in the field of fuel cell has become a new, growing area of interest in recent years. We review chemical process for synthesis of pt nanoparticles. Recent developments in syntheses process of pure & mixed platinum nanoparticles has briefly reviewed specifically for applications in fuel cells. As the physicochemical properties of noble-metal nanostructures are strongly dependent upon shape and size, the development of reliable synthesis methods for the production of nanocrystals with well-defined size and morphology have been discussed briefly. The role of nanostructured supports for the nanoparticles, such as ordered mesoporous carbon, dendrimer have also discussed. And size of the nanoparticles obtained in deferent process and their temperature dependence has also discussed briefly