Environmental Processes
Environmental Processes focuses on the phenomena, concepts and technology essential for maintaining the quality of the air-land-water environment. Specialization in Environmental Processes requires an understanding of the biological, chemical and physical phenomena that affect the planning, design and operation of the engineering facilities needed to protect public health and the environment. Specializations include contaminant fate in the environment, water and wastewater treatment, the disposal of treated effluents in water and on land, the treatment of solids residuals generated by these processes, bioremediation of contaminated soils and groundwater systems, mechanisms of pollutant transformation in nature, and development of new sustainable technologies to help bring safe drinking water and effective practices for wastewater treatment to the billions of people who lack these basic necessities and who live in countries lacking the technology needed to support conventional approaches to water and wastewater treatment.
Possible projects in the Environmental Processes area are:
- AguaClara: Design and Experimentation in Sustainable Water Supply and Treatment
- Optimization of Bioethanol Production from Lignocellulose
- Bioaugmentation in the Aerobic Remediation of a cDCE-Contaminated Groundwater
- Design of a bioreactor treatment system in which formation of biogenic manganese oxides is utilized for removal of toxic metals
- Renewable energy: bioelectricity from waste material
- Microbial Source Tracking of coliforms in Cayuga Lake
- Characterizing the removal efficiency of lead and arsenic in “Brita- type” filters
AguaClara: Design and Experimentation in Sustainable Water Supply and Treatment. AguaClara is an award winning, multi-year international engineering project in CEE that makes it possible for M.Eng students to contribute to the research, design, and implementation of Sustainable Municipal Water Treatment Plants in the Global South. The AguaClara project includes opportunities for a 2 week educational trip to project sites in Honduras during the January intersession and for 3 month to 2 year international internships as AguaClara Engineers
Optimization of Bioethanol Production from Lignocellulose: Of increasing interest are technologies for conversion of purpose-grown crops (such as switchgrass) to ethanol. Many conversion steps are required from crop-to-biofuel: milling, pretreatment for increasing availability of the carbohydrates; enzymatic hydrolysis to simple sugars (and other products); fermentation; and refinement of the resulting ethanol to fuel-grade. This project explores the trade-offs among the many options and variables in the process train, with the goal of optimizing the whole.
Bioaugmentation in the Aerobic Remediation of a cDCE-Contaminated Groundwater: Research at Cornell has established the potential for deploying a novel, aerobic bacterium (Polaromonas strain JS666) in the aerobic bioremediation of sites contaminated with cis-dichloroethene (cDCE). cDCE is commonly encountered at sites originally contaminated with higher-chlorinated ethenes (perchloroethylene, PCE, and trichloroethene, TCE), when the parent compounds “stall” at cDCE in anaerobic reductive transformation upgradient of an aerobic zone. This project will explore preliminary design of a remediation scheme in which JS666 is added (and tracked thereafter) to effect cDCE degradation in situ.
Design of a bioreactor treatment system in which formation of biogenic manganese oxides is utilized for removal of toxic metals: Oxidation of manganese [Mn(II)] by bacteria produces oxides [MnOx (III/IV)] that are strong adsorbents for toxic transition metals. The student(s) participating in this project will create a numerical model for alternative reactor systems in which bacteria that oxidize Mn(II) are utilized to create MnOx for purposes of treating waste streams containing dissolved metals Schemes for recovery of oxide-bound metals will be considered as will the sensitivity of alternative designs to kinetic constraints on bacterial growth, production of extracellular enzymes responsible for Mn(II) oxidation, and the rate of Mn(II) oxidation.
Renewable energy: bioelectricity from waste material: Microbial fuel cells (MFC) convert reduced organic compounds into CO2 and bioelectricity. Since waste streams (domestic and industrial wastewater, animal manures, food scraps) are very high in organics, they all provide a renewable and largely untapped source of such bioelectricity. This project focuses on design of MFC for waste streams.
Microbial Source Tracking of coliforms in Cayuga Lake: This project has developed from involvement with the Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW). This project explores different methods for determining which “source” animals (humans, cows, geese, dogs, deer, etc.) are contributing to the coliforms in Cayuga Lake and its tributaries. Students working on such a project would interact with a local non-profit - the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network. Projects could be laboratory focused (DNA and antibiotics-based assays are both used) or could focus upon GIS-based analysis of different “source” populations in the watershed.
Characterizing the removal efficiency of lead and arsenic in “Brita- type” filters: Household water filters of the Brita type are effective in removing Cl2, hardness, Fe and Mn but little is known about removal efficiency for Pb and As (and other toxic heavy metals). This project will investigate removal efficiency and capacity (run length) Pb and As for the purpose of recommending warnings or guidelines.
