Engineering Commons^™

Evaluating The Two-Stage Ditch As A New Best Management Practice, Andi Hodaj

Open Access Dissertations

A two-stage ditch involves modifications of a traditional drainage ditch to resemble more the features of a natural stream. The idea is to create or simulate extended benches on both sides of the ditch that would develop naturally over a period of time in a stream because of geomorphological processes. Previous research in Indiana and Ohio has shown that two-stage ditches offer the potential to reduce sediment load and extend the interaction time between water and vegetation on the benches allowing larger uptake of nutrients from the vegetation on the extended benches, and increasing the denitrification rates in the bench …

Enhancing Bioethanol Fermentation Through Removal Of Acetic Acid Using Liquid-Liquid Extraction, Mahdieh Aghazadeh

Open Access Dissertations

The concern for the ever growing human population as well as the depletion of fossil fuel resources and their impact on global warming have long been motivations for the researchers to investigate means for sustainable producing carbon-neutral energy. Second-generation biofuel refers to liquid fuels that are produced from non-food resources and reduce the total greenhouse gas emission by at least 60 %. Acetic acid has been shown to be one of the most ubiquitous fermentation inhibitors in a bioethanol production facility which slows down the bioethanol production and reduces its yield through inhibition of the ethanol producing microorganisms. The use …

Hydrologic And Water Quality Impacts From Perennial Crop Production On Marginal Lands, Qingyu Feng

Open Access Dissertations

Marginal lands are proposed as a viable option for producing biofeedstocks as these lands are not heavily engaged in agricultural production or may not be suitable for intensive row-crop food/feed production. However, meeting biofeedstock production goals will require large amount of marginal lands and the unintended consequences of producing biofeedstocks on marginal lands are not fully clear. The overall goal of this study was to evaluate the productivity of biofeedstocks on marginal lands and the potential impacts on hydrologic and water quality processes from the land use conversion.

This study was conducted in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB). First, …