A New Historicist Analysis of Bina Shah’s Novel a Season for Martyrs

This study is conducted to analyze the novel Bina Shah’ novel A Season for Martyrs, from the perspective of New Historicism. This novel presents history of Sindh blended with fiction. It highlights the main Historical events of Sindh; from the arrival of the British in 1827 and occupation of Sindh by Charles Napier till the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in present century. Shah has narrated the history to show its link with the present political and social situation of Sindh. The novel has focused social and political discourses of Sindhi society such as: Significance of love with the land and people’ faith in mystics. The novel has narrated various myths and tales about famous mystics belonging to Sindh. The novel presents story of Ali, a young media reporter, who faces identity problem because of social and psychological issues but when he realizes that his land needs his services, he becomes political activist. This study analyses historical facts and some social and political discourses presented in the novel. Effort is done to interpret the novel according to the theory. Cultural context and social environment of the author is analyzed by observing facts from her social and personal life. Social and political situation of present era are discussed to find the impact of present situation on the interpretation of the author.

Potential to Utilize Lignocellulosic Feedstocks for the Production of Ethanol Fuel in Pakistan

Pakistan is facing severe energy crises which are hindering economic growth for the last few years. Fluctuation in energy prices in international market, shrinking existing resources, and the search for alternative sources of energy and energy conservation technologies have brought into focus the development of 2nd generation bioethanol. Shifting of fuel mix from expensive, environmental unfriendly fossilfuels to cheaper andrenewable resources could address energy issues of country’s growing transportation sector. Since Pakistan is agriculture based economy and lignocellulosic material (LCM) are widely available, this study has explored Pakistan potential to produce 2nd generation bioethanol from five major LCM generated in country i.e. cotton stalks, sugarcane tops, rice straw, maize stalks and wheat straw. All these materials selected for this study hasless commercial value and less applications in other sectors. The conversion of LCM into sugar subsequent to bioethanol is the function of chemistry of each biomass and it involves pretreatment step followed by hydrolysis and fermentation. Detailedstudies have already been carried on pretreatment and fermentation technologies and both these technologies are well developed and matured. However there is a gap in literature regarding the hydrolysisof LCM using ionic liquid (ILs) as catalyst. ILs and its application in different fields including its application in hydrolysis of LCM is emerging field of study. In this study, hydrolysis of cellulose with ILs is studied to evaluate the influence of operating parameters on its performance.This study carries out the hydrolysis of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and cotton. The studyalso developsmodel to estimate the availability of important crops residue and their theoretical maximum bioethanol production potential of Pakistan and their competitiveness. Adopting 2nd generation bioethanol as fuel in country’s transportation sector requiresround the year availability of LCM which is the feedstock for production of 2ndgeneration bioethanol. This study develops a competitive model to evaluate the quantities of LCM available for bioethanol production. Based on the evaluation of the availability of LCM in Pakistan, this study forecasts the annual yield of cotton stalks, sugarcane tops, rice straw, maize stalks and wheat straw from 2013 to 2030 in Pakistan with the help of Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Interface System Model(ANFIS). This model uses the data from 1973-2012 as input formulating a time series for each parameter. Based on the availability of biomass feedstock, the study forecasts the maximum theoretical potential for production of bioethanol from these crop residues up to 2030. Since quantity of bioethanol required as renewable transport fuel is related to nature of gasoline demand, based on data for 1991-2014 this study uses autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) method to estimate the consumption of gasoline in transportation sector in Pakistan up to 2030. The study found that hydrolysis of (MCC) and cotton could be efficiently catalyzed by IL.In this work experimental studies was conducted to evaluate the catalytic performances of a series of Brönsted-Lewis acidic N-methyl-2-pyrrolidonium metal chlorides ([Hnmp]Cl/MClx, where M=Fe, Zn, Al, or Cu) for the hydrolysis of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and cotton to produce reducing sugar. A variety of factors, such as temperature, time, ionic liquid (IL) species, IL dosage, and the concentration of the metal chloride were investigated. This experimental work reportedthe best performance of [Hnmp]Cl/FeCl3 as hydrolysis performance, affording a 98.8% yield of total reducing sugar from MCC (1 h, 100 °C, 0.1 g MCC, 0.2 g acidic IL, 2.0 g [Bmim]Cl as solvent), which is better than or comparable to results previously obtained with other –SO3H functionalized acidic ILs.The hydrolysis performances of [Hnmp]Cl/MClx were rationalized using density functional theory calculations, which indicated that interactions between the metal chlorides and the cellulose, including charge-transfer interactions are important in the hydrolysis of cellulose and degradation of glucose. While evaluating the availability of LCM in Pakistan, this study found that Pakistan generated around 41.5 billion kg of field based crop residues from five major crops in 2012 which can produce 6.726 billion liter of bioethanol at 50% conversion efficiency. According to ANFIS model forecast, Pakistan’s potential to produce 2nd generation bioethanol would increase from 6.73 billion litersin 2012 to 11.9 billion liters in 2030 at steady growth rate of 4.2%. The share of wheat straw in ethanol production potential was highest at 44.08% followed by sugarcane tops at 20.8%. According to study results the implementation of E10 scheme at current gasoline consumption level give the bioethanol requirement of the country at around 492.22 million liters which in predicted to increase up to 1151.6million liter by the year 2030. Similarly implementation of E20 scheme at current gasoline consumption level give the bioethanol requirement of the country at around 984.44 million liters which in predicted to increase up to 2303.2 million liters by the year 2030. The study result suggest that Pakistan’s potential to produce 2nd generation bioethanol in short to medium term is well above the country’sbioethanol requirements for blending with gasoline for implementation of E10 as well as E20 schemes. Pakistan has potential to replace entire consumption of gasoline with 2ndgenerationbioethanol, but this requires substantial modification in engines of existing fleet of vehicles. Implementing E10 or E20 scheme and promotion of 2nd generation bioethanol effectively is a strategic move for Pakistan to become a self-sufficient country in energy needs in future especially in country’s transport sector whose share in country’s total demand for petroleum products was 48.8% in 2012. This study provides useful information for designing policy in favor of substituting gasoline with bioethanol keeping in consideration the 2nd generation bioethanol production potential and short to medium term demand of bioethanol as substitute transportation fuel. Adopting 2nd generation bioethanol wouldalso help to avoid any competition between food need versus the fuel requirements of the country. Additionally, forecast results provide useful support for designing an appropriate infrastructure and investment plan with reference to both gasoline and bioethanol blends in future.Integration of 2nd generation bioethanol in domestic transport sector is anticipated to further raise Pakistan’s bioethanol production as well as its export. This would also help the country in reducing its fuel import bill and improve energy security. Since Pakistan is signatory of Kyoto Protocol, projects in 2ndgeneration bioethanol technologies could benefit from procuring carbon credits through Clean Development Mechanism.