The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on January 26, 2010). Thesis advisor: Dr. Wyatt Thompson. Includes bibliographical references.

D. Tech. Business Administration / The study attempts to identify and quantify socio-economic factors that are influence the production and distribution of biofuels products in Zimbabwe. It also seeks to provide an empirical analysis of the importance of stakeholders in Biofuel production and distribution and how their perceptions and influences tend to affect production and distribution.

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Energy availability and environmental issues are of growing concern; nations are striving to use energy more efficiently while at the same time decreasing the negative impacts on the environment. / The objectives of this study are to: (1) establish a supply price for ethanol derived from switchgrass, (2) establish an accounting budget for carbon dioxide during feedstock production and processing into ethanol, and (3) determine the cost/tonne of CO$ sb2$ using this strategy. / Total cost of production of the feedstock for cycles of 5, 10, 15, and 20 years are $357.06/ha ( $32.73/ODT), $337.81/ha ( $30.96/ODT), $331.52/ha ( $30.39/ODT), and $328.47/ha ( $30.11/ODT) respectively. Thus, the approximate cost of producing one litre of ethanol from switchgrass is $0.47/litre. / Overall, the switchgrass-ethanol system is a net carbon sink for all four cycles, and each hectare of swithgrass sequesters between 1.9 and 6.8 tonne of CO$ sb2$ per year. However, this process is not indefinite, and will stop once the soil organic matter reaches an equilibrium. / The current price for gas is $0.24/litre (excluding taxes and profit margins). According to the price differential existing between ethanol and gasoline and the CO$ sb2$ emissions difference between both systems, the cost of sequestering CO$ sb2$ ranges between $83/tonne and $129/tonne, with the adoption of this specific strategy. At the macro level, Quebec and Canada's total carbon dioxide emissions reached 70 million tonnes and 461 million tonnes respectively, in 1991. Thus, displacing fossil-based energy sources (gasoline) with a renewable energy source (ethanol from switchgrass) to reduce those emissions by 20 % by the year 2010, incurs a cost ranging between $1.16 billion and $1.8 billion for Quebec, and between $7.7 billion and $11.9 billion for Canada. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

As biofuels were growing in importance, Jatropha curcas has been widely promoted as the best suitable source for biodiesel that can be exploited by developing countries .Whilst there were fears that this development may threaten food security and put a strain on other natural resources there was a view that if well managed, the activity may spur rural economic growth thereby reducing poverty and unemployment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact that growing Jatropha curcas for supplying the biodiesel industry has made on the livelihoods of the households that were involved within the community of Mpaka in Swaziland. The target respondents were all the farmers that had an agreement with D1 Oils Swaziland and actually planted Jatropha curcas based on the Sustainable Livelihoods framework and using qualitative techniques data were collected using documentation, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion, and some observation. Content analysis was then carried out to document the history of growing Jatropha curcas in Swaziland; map out the vulnerability context for the community of Mpaka; identify the range of assets that create the different livelihood strategies for the different households; determine the effect of policies and institutional conditions; and describe what the stakeholder’s view of growing Jatropha curcas is. The findings of the study revealed that growing Jatropha curcas greatly reduced the households’ vulnerability to drought, crops being browsed by livestock and high cost of farming inputs. However the study also revealed that the activity did not yield the desired outcome of income generation as the project did not continue due to bad publicity coupled with a poor policy environment and lack of coordination between and within government ministries and departments. Whilst it can be concluded that that the activity had a negative impact on the households involved it showed a great potential provided government through the relevant ministries and departments creates an enabling environment of proper policies and institutions and by involving all stakeholders at the right time. / Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

Low cost cellulosic wastes like paper sludge, municipal wastes, solid wastes from food, packing etc. contain a high amount of cellulose which can be converted to bioethanol by two steps: (1) solubilization of cellulosic fibers to monosaccharides (2) conversion of monosachharides to bioethanol via fermentation. At present the implementation of this technology has been deterred by high cost for enzymes. Enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulosic fibers shows a biphasic behavior with an initial fast step followed by a slow step leading to low cellulose conversion rates. Low hydrolytic conversion rates necessitate the use of a high enzyme dosage to obtain meaningful cellulose conversion rates which make the implementation of this entire technology economically infeasible. The objective of this study is to get a better understanding of the mechanism of enzymatic hydrolysis of fibers to glucose and to investigate the effect of cationic polymers on enzymatic hydrolysis rates. To achieve the first objective, we performed experiments so as to study changes in morphological and physiochemical properties like fiber length, percentage of fines, crystallinity index, kink angle, kink index, mean curl, total organic carbon and glucose production with time. We used bleached kraft softwood, hardwood, and unbleached softwood fiber as cellulosic substrate and pergalase as cellulase enzyme. All of the experiments were carried out at experimental conditions of a temperature of 50 .C and a pH of 5.0 which maximize enzymatic activity. We studied the impact of recycling and refining on hydrolysis rates by measuring total organic carbon and glucose production. We found that refining increases enzymatic conversion rates by about as much as 20 %, however refining being energy intensive makes its implementation economically unfavorable. We found a novel way of enhancing hydrolysis rates by the use of cationic polyacrylamides. The effect of cationic polacrylamides was studied on both hardwood and softwood fibers at similar experimental conditions. Cationic polyacrylamides produced a maximum rate increase of 20 % in hydrolytic conversion rates for hardwood fibers. Even though, the increase in hydrolysis rates for softwood fibers was smaller than hardwood fibers, it was still significant. We further studied the effect of parameters like polymer concentration, cationicity and molecular weight to find a relation between properties of polymers and the increase in enzymatic hydrolysis.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, March, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S. (Hons.))-- University of Western Sydney, 2008. / A thesis sumitted to the University of Western Sydney in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science (Honours), School of Natural Sciences, College of Health and Science. Includes bibliography.

Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Montana, 2008. / Title from author supplied metadata. Description based on contents viewed on July 15, 2009. Includes bibliographical references.