Paraffin is used as a main household energy source for cooking, lighting and heating by low-income communities in South Africa. It is highly inflammable and spillages from paraffin can be considered as one of the major causes of fires that lead to the destruction of dwellings in the informal settlement. The situation is made worse due to the close proximity of the dwellings to each other which cause the fires to spread very quickly from one dwelling to the next leaving suffering and most often death in its wake (Schwebel et al., 2009:700). It has been shown by Muller et al. (2003:2018) that most of the informal rural communities use paraffin in non-ventilated and windowless environments and this causes major respiratory problems. The government has made a huge effort towards replacing paraffin as main cooking fuel in rural and informal settlements with ethanol gel. Ethanol gel is a healthier, safer alternative to paraffin because ethanol gel does not burn unless it is contained within a cooking device that concentrates the flame. It also fails to emit lung irritants or other dangerous chemical vapours when burned indoors (Bizzo et al., 2004:67). Commercial ethanol gels are manufactured with imported gelling agents that make their costs unaffordable to the rural poor communities. It is the objective of this study to determine whether gelling agents extracted from the local endemic species of cactacea viz. Opuntia fiscus-indica and Cereus Jamacaru can be used to synthesise ethanol gel comparable or better than the commercial gels. The two species chosen have been declared pests (Nel et al., 2004:61) and are continuously uprooted from arable land and burned by local farmers (Van Wilgen et al., 2001:162) This study showed that Opuntia ficas-indica stems gave a better cellulose yield (15.0 ± 6.7 wt. %) than Cereus Jamacaru (11.5 ± 7.8wt %). Chemical composition analyses and FT-IR analyses showed that the hemicelluloses and lignin were completely removed from the extracted cellulose and the extraction was more effective for Opuntia ficasindica than for Cereus Jamacaru. Ethanol gel produced by using the extracted cellulose, as was investigated during this study, was compared to commercial gels with respect to viscosity, burn time, calorific values and residue and a good comparison was obtained. / Thesis (M.Sc. Engineering Sciences (Chemical Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Submitted by Automa??o e Estat?stica (sst@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2015-12-15T18:11:14Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PedroEtelvinoDeGoesNeto_DISSERT.pdf: 761420 bytes, checksum: 21159a91fec1afc40804e76ee1ca9c94 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Arlan Eloi Leite Silva (eloihistoriador@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-12-30T17:48:01Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 PedroEtelvinoDeGoesNeto_DISSERT.pdf: 761420 bytes, checksum: 21159a91fec1afc40804e76ee1ca9c94 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-30T17:48:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PedroEtelvinoDeGoesNeto_DISSERT.pdf: 761420 bytes, checksum: 21159a91fec1afc40804e76ee1ca9c94 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-28 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior - CAPES / O objetivo do presente trabalho foi avaliar o efeito da utiliza??o de cact?ceas nativas e ex?ticas ao n?vel de 50% na MS de inclus?o na dieta total, sobre o consumo de nutrientes, ingest?o de ?gua, produ??o e composi??o f?sico-qu?mica do leite, com cabras em lacta??o. Foram utilizadas 5 cabras Saanen plur?paras (50?4 kg) alocadas em quadrado latino de acordo com cact?ceas fornecidas nas dietas, constando de cinco per?odos de 17 dias, sendo 10 dias de adapta??o e 7 para coleta de dados, cinco tratamentos com as seguintes cact?ceas: xiquexique, mandacaru, facheiro, palma mi?da e palma orelha de elefante mexicana. O consumo de mat?ria seca variou de 1.967,58 a 2.602,46 (g/dia) entre as cact?ceas e teve uma m?dia de 2.251,84 (g/dia). Observou-se que o consumo de mat?ria seca CMS (g/kg0,75) variou de 102,75 ? 136,78 entre as cact?ceas estudadas. O consumo de mat?ria seca (%PV) variou de 3,84 ? 5,11 com m?dia de 4,47. A produ??o de leite em (g/dia) variou de 1.692,60 a 2.090,40. O consumo de ?gua oferecida variou entre 4.549g (xiquexique) a 8.749 (palma mi?da). As cabras alimentadas com palma mi?da apresentaram-se com as maiores produ??es de leite (g/dia) com valores m?dio de 2.091. N?o houve diferen?a na composi??o f?sico-qu?mica do leite estando os teores de gordura, prote?na bruta, lactose e s?lidos totais a cima do m?nimo permitido pela legisla??o para leite de cabra no Brasil. A utiliza??o de cact?ceas ao n?vel de 50% MS na inclus?o da dieta total proporcionou consumo de nutrientes suficientes para atender as exig?ncias dos animais para a produ??o de leite sem alterar a sua composi??o f?sico-qu?mica. / The objective of this research was to evaluate the production of dairy goats fed different species of cactus. Pluriparous five Saanen goats were used, with nine weeks of lactation, and average live weight of 50 kg ? 4 kg. The animals were distributed in latin square design (5x5) with 5 diets and 5 periods. No differences (P>0,05) were observed in the DM of the experimental diets by getting average values of 2.251,84 g dia-1 , 4,46 %PV e 118,91g kg0,75 . The DM contents of the diets were 50,55 to 55,92% by presenting a maximum variation of 10% between them. A significant difference (P<0,05) water consumption way tendered, between diets with different cactus species. The treatments cactus ?Orelha de Elefante Mexicana? and Facheiro had lower water consumption compared to cactus ?Palma Mi?da. For milk yield no significant difference (P> 0,05) between diets formulated with cactus species, with an average of 1,90 kg/day treatments. The analysis of variance show a significant difference (P<0,05) among treatments for milk corrected to 4% fat and fat production. There was an effect (P<0,05) of the diets with different cactus on the crude protein (CP) and lactose in milk. All treatments with different cactus species can be used for dairy goats in view consumption have afforded sufficient to meet the nutritional requirements for milk nutrients, besides presenting the higher than levels of physical and chemical composition to minimum levels established by current legislation