Final-year FUD student converts sachet water waste to kerosene, diesel

Zainab Bilyamin, a final-year student of the Department of Chemistry, Federal University Dutse (FUD), has succeeded in converting sachet water polythene waste into hybrid fuel (kerosene and diesel) through her final-year research project.

This was recently made known through the university’s newsletter.

It was gathered that the fuel produced from the polythene waste has similar properties as normal kerosene and diesel, as it was used to light a kerosene lamp and to power a pumping machine successfully.

Bilyamin’s final-year project is entitled ‘Conversion of low-density polyethylene and mixed low-density polyethylene with polyethylene terephthalate into fuel’.

She noted that the research cost her more than N100,000 to conduct.

She said she was motivated to carry out the research after reading about the possibility of converting polymeric waste into fuel, adding that in Nigeria polymeric waste keeps piling up on the streets without recycling, which poses environmental hazards.

Her research supervisor, Aminu Dauda, said he keyed into the project because combatting the menace of polymeric waste pollution has become a global challenge.

Bilyamin, a native of Jigawa State, said she is interested in academics and would want to carry the research further into her Masters and PhD programmes

Bilyamin and her supervisor called on the government to invest in this area of research.