Islamic Studies and Private Universities in South-West Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects

Islamic Studies is one of the core and pertinent courses offered and taught at both private and public universities in Nigeria. The subject prepared its graduates to have potentialities, capabilities man power in teaching, administration, politics, economic, legislation and judiciary in Nigeria. Despite these significant contributions, the subject has confronted with a lot of deprivations in the enrollment of students, recruitment of staff and availability of physical and instructional materials. Based on these, the paper therefore, intends to explore the teaching and learning of Islamic studies in the south west Nigeria private universities, identify problems facing its teaching and learning and proffer solutions to these predicaments. The methodology adopted is analytical with information from both oral interview and written sources from libraries in Nigeria. Among the findings of the study are that the Subject-Islamic studies needs more experts to teach its core courses in private universities in Nigeria and students who wish to enroll for the subject should have rudiments of the discipline before admission.   

Development and Performance Evaluation of Indigenous Piston Press Briquetting Machine for Crop Residue

Pakistan produces massive amount of crop residue with high bulk volume and low density. This residue is difficult to handle, transport, and store. Only a little amount of energy is recovered from it due to inefficient techniques while remaining is wasted. Farmers often use on site disposal via burning to remove this residue which results in release of enormous amount of harmful gases to the environment due to incomplete combustion. There is need to have modern technologies to convert loose biomass residue into dense, well-shaped product like briquettes that would be easy to burn and sustainable to the environment. Moreover, these energy blocks in the form of briquettes can be utilized in energy extraction systems as an alternative of wood and expensive fossil fuels (crude oil, natural gas and coal). Specially, deployment in electricity power generation plants can provide huge relieve from the energy shortage in the country. The present study shows the development, optimization and performance evaluation of intermediate pressure briquettes forming machine, working on mechanical piston press technology with production capacity ≈300 kg/m3 and produces 85 mm diameter briquettes. To develop it locally available material, technology and man power was used to reduce the cost of machine. Concavity of machine’s die was optimized at 20° tapered. It was optimized based on durability, density and compressible strength of briquettes at 20% moisture content, 9 mm particle size and 300° Cmould (die) temperature using a specific binder ratio i.e. crop residue: slurry: starch = 12:3:1. Comparison of Exhaust gases (CO, CO2, NOx and SO2) analysis of the raw biomass and briquettes showed that burning of briquettes released from 43 to 6 times less toxic gases as compared to their loose straws and conventional solid fuels. Payback period and benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of briquettes formation plant were calculated as eight months and 1.25 respectively.So, economical, environment friendly and good quality solid fuel was produced from crop residue.