The overwhelming demand of oil and fats to meet the ever increasing needs for biofuel, cosmetics production, and other industrial purposes has enhanced a number of innovations in this industry. One such innovation is the use of microorganisms as alternative sources of oil and fats. Organic solid waste that is causing a big challenge of disposal worldwide is biodegradable and can be utilized as substrate for alternative oil production. The study evaluated the potential of isolated yeast-like colonies to grow and accumulate oil by using organic solid waste as substrate. Of the 25 yeast-like colonies isolated from the soil samples collected from three different suburbs in Kampala district, Uganda, 20 were screened positive for accumulation of lipid but only 2 were oleaginous. The NHC isolate with the best oil accumulation potential of 48.8% was used in the central composite design (CCD) experiments. The CCD experimental results revealed a maximum oil yield of 61.5% from 1.25 g/L cell biomass at 10 g/L of solid waste and temperature of 25°C. The study revealed that organic solid waste could be used as a substrate for microbial oil production.

This paper presents the modeling and simulation of a suspension polymerization for methyl methacrylate in an isothermal reactor to produce poly methyl methacrylate using Python 3.5. The numeral solution to the stiff ordinary differential equations was performed by building a custom module which was used with the inbuilt NumPy and matplotlib modules that come with the Anaconda python distro. Python was used in order to obtain a realistic solution that considers the gel, glass and cage effects that affect the non-linear polymerization kinetics established in literature. The results showed that a maximum monomer conversion of about 92.8% at a minimum batch time of about 2.2 hours could be achieved at the specified conditions to obtain a polydisperse polymer with an index of 27. It is further concluded that Python can be employed to perform similar studies with equal success as any other programming language.

BackgroundGroundwater is the main source of water for drinking and other domestic use for the people of Banda. The main objective was to assess water quality in selected springs in Banda in the Kampala district. The specific objectives were to determine the pH, electroconductivity, alkalinity, turbidity, total dissolved solids, mineral and heavy metal content of the water samples as well as their fecal coliform counts.Methodology Two samples were collected from each spring at an interval of one week. Electroconductivity and pH measurements were done on-site using a conductivity meter and a digital pH meter respectively. Alkalinity and chlorine content was determined by titration, total dissolved solids by the gravimetric method, and turbidity by use of a turbidity meter while Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy was used for both mineral and heavy metal analysis. Fecal coliforms were enumerated using the membrane filtration method. Minerals assessed were calcium, potassium, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium while lead, cadmium, copper, and arsenic were the heavy metals of interest. ResultsResults showed the following concentration ranges: pH (4.71-6.26), electro conductivity (218.80-621.00 µS/cm), alkalinity (10.35-60.40 mg/L), total dissolved solids (111.90-323.20 mg/L), turbidity (2-3 FTU), 25 mg/L), Calcium (4.81-20.05 mg/L), Magnesium (2.50-4.87 mg/L), Potassium (4.05-11.85 mg/L) and Lead (0.17-0.24 mg/L), Copper (1.69-2.66 mg/L), Cadmium (0.02-0.08 mg/L), Arsenic (0.005-0.01 mg/L). Fecal coliforms ranged between 1150 and 2700 colony forming units/100ml. ConclusionFrom analyses carried out, spring water from Banda is chemically and microbiologically unsuitable for the drinking-water purpose except after some form of treatment.Recommendations National Water and Sewerage Cooperation should take urgent action by carrying out more research on all water springs in this area.Residents of this area should be encouraged to use tap water than spring water until further analyses are carried out.