This course provides students with the knowledge and skills for the processing of plantation crops including cocoa, coffee, shea butter, palm oil, rubber, sugar cane, jatropha seeds etc., into food, energy and other high-value bio-based products. The course treats the economic importance of these crops, the installation and operation of facilities for the conversion of the industrial raw materials into the various products.

The main thrust of this course is to explore the field of agriculture and food policy analysis.  It examines issues on security and food, self-sufficiency, structural adjustment programmes, and trade policies in developing countries. The world food system, its relationship with economic, political, technological, historical and socio-cultural factors will be treated. 

The course provides students with an overview of the organisation of protein structure; primary, secondary (alpha helices and beta sheets, turns, loops, paper clips) tertiary, quaternary, the concept of motif and domains and protein function. Emphasis is given to the determination of protein structure and conformational changes by UV/VIS, Infrared, fluorescence, CD, DLS, NMR, X-ray crystallography, calorimetry, microscopy and the use of Ramanchandran plot for quantification of alpha and beta elements. The use of myoglobin and haemoglobin to illustrate the phenomenon of protein-ligand binding and in models to explain allosteric interactions and the Bohrs’ effects will also be discussed. 

Topics selected to be covered include thermodynamics: Definition of system and surroundings, Energy, work and heat. The First Law of Thermodynamics, Hess’s law, enthalpy of reactions. Spontaneous changes: Entropy / Free Energy. The second law of thermodynamics, free energy changes and equilibrium constants will be discussed.  The principles of thermodynamics and their application to the energetics of the cell will also be discussed. There will be a review of the structure of mitochondrion and chloroplast and their relationship to the redox complexes of their respective electron transport system. The review will also include the link between ATP synthesis and sources of energy establishment of proton gradients, the concept of high energy compounds, the redox systems, and energetics of coupled reactions. ATP utilisation for the performance of cellular work, active membrane transport, activation for metabolism, and muscle contraction will be examined.