Aluminum (Al) dross is a hazardous waste from the secondary smelting of aluminium industries, and safe disposal of this waste is a big challenge to these industries. Dumping of this waste is an environmental hazard to plants, animals, and even human beings. This study is aimed at improving the mechanical properties of polypropylene (PP) by adding Al dross in 2-50 wt% for particle sizes 53 μm and 150 μm. PP-Al-dross composite samples were cast, and ultimate tensile strength (UTS), impact resistance (IR), water absorption (WA), and density (D) tests were carried out. The results obtained show that UTS improved by 68% (at 15 wt% Al-dross addition), D increased by 54% (at 50 wt% Al-dross addition), and WA by 500% (at 8 wt% Al-dross addition) over the convectional PP. The impact resistance of the composite was found to be the same (68 J) with that of conventional PP at 15 wt% Al dross.

Studies have been carried out on bovine bone due to its abundance and large quantity of hydroxyapatite (HAP) in it while caprine bone has been understudied. In this study, locally sourced bovine and caprine bones were washed in distilled water, defatted at 120°C for 1.5 hr in a pressure pot, ball-milled, sieved to 150 µm particle size and characterised. The X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and Energy dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDS) analysis revealed calcium, phosphorus and carbon as the main components. Both bones contained carbon and oxygen due to the presence of organic collagen but the quantity in caprine bone was a bit higher as revealed by the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and EDS spectra. A slight difference in thermal decomposition patterns was recorded while X-Ray diffraction analysis (XRD) revealed the presence of identical functional phases. The microstructures showed needle-like and pebble-like shapes for bovine and caprine respectively, also on visual examination of the Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM), the bovine samples tended to have particle surface roughness more than caprine. Consequently, the chemical properties of both bone raw samples were insignificantly different from each other except for collagen composition and morphology.