Engineering Commons^™

College Students' Perceptions Of Sustainability: A Regional Survey, Michael Myung Jeong, Younghan Jung, Dan Daehyun Koo

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Understanding college students’ perception of sustainability is paramount as today’s students will soon be driving our economy and taking on the responsibility of maintaining a sustainable society. This study conducted a survey of college students attending two regional universities in the United States to capture their current experience levels, expectations, and perceptions with regard to various aspects of sustainability utilizing a questionnaire consisting of structured questions about sustainability knowledge/familiarity levels, green product purchase behavior, attitude-behavior relationship, and sustainability education. The results reveal useful insights into the students’ views on these topics and the demographic data collected were further analyzed to …

Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactors To Treat Municipal Wastewater At Ambient Temperatures, Matthew D. Seib

Dissertations (1934 -)

Anaerobic biotechnology is viewed as a sustainable alternative to aerobic biotechnology for municipal wastewater recovery. However, anaerobic processes have not been successful in cold climates. Past examples have not been able to meet low organic effluent concentrations, or have failed due to biomass washout resulting from low temperature operation and short hydraulic residence time. Recently, the anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) has been shown to achieve low effluent organic concentrations and maintain stable anaerobic biomass. However, shortcomings have included high energy demands for membrane operation and poor understanding of microbial community structures within AnMBRs. This dissertation describes efforts to improve AnMBRs …

The Effect Of Urbanization On The Embodied Energy Of Drinking Water In Tampa, Florida, Mark Vincent Eli Santana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increasing urbanization has serious implications for resource and energy use. One of these resources is drinking water. The increased amount of impervious surfaces associated with urban development is responsible for increased runoff during rain events, which may have a negative impact on the quality of nearby bodies of water, including drinking water sources. The growing populations associated with urbanization require a higher water demand. In addition, urban drinking water systems use energy to collect, treat, and distribute a safe reliable effluent to users. Therefore, this study focuses on the degree to which urbanization influences the embodied energy of drinking water …

A Cradle To Farm Gate Life Cycle Analysis Of Land Use In U.S. Pork Production, William Benjamin Putman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study was to conduct a detailed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the U.S. live swine production supply chain to quantify land use requirements and to assess the impact associated with various ration compositions. The functional unit was defined as one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of live swine at the farm gate, ready for transport to the abattoir. This assessment focused on the three highest producing USDA regions, which encompassed the Midwest (Regions 5 and 7) and the Southeast (Region 4), representing 86% of U.S. market hog production.

First, a literature review was conducted to summarize the most …

Using The Triple Bottom Line To Select Sustainable Suppliers For A Major Oil And Gas Company, Pandarinath Adarsh Sunkari

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Companies have primarily been focusing on the financial bottom line i.e., on increasing profits by increasing revenues and reducing costs. With high energy usage and environmental change posing threats to the environment and business operations, companies are now considering sustainability. Since some global suppliers have low cost labor, Social well-being and human development has also emerged as major goals of a company performing global operations. Focusing on these three goals is termed the "Triple Bottom Line" (TBL). We study and explore the TBL benefits that could be realized by an oil and gas company by focusing on sustainable suppliers. A …

Incorporating Environmental And Social Factors Into Decision-Making Of An Oil And Gas Industry To Improve Sustainability, Gaurav Dabhadkar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The energy industry (including the oil and gas industry) is facing unparalleled scrutiny and demands from stakeholders including investors, regulators (industry and environmental), communities, and other stakeholders. Sustainable development is one of the major concerns of the oil and gas industry. Companies are seeking to increase sustainability of their operations by considering environmental and Social concerns in addition to economic concerns. Oil and gas companies need to take decisions at different stages of the product life cycle (e.g. planning, design, exploration, production, and clean-up) which have direct or indirect impact on the organization's objectives. Addressing economic, technical, Social, and environmental …

Does Material Choice Drive Sustainability Of 3d Printing?, Jeremy Faludi, Zhongyin Hu, Shahd Alrashed, Christopher Braunholz, Suneesh Kaul, Leulekal Kassaye

Dartmouth Scholarship

Environmental impacts of six 3D printers using various materials were compared to determine if material choice drove sustainability, or if other factors such as machine type, machine size, or machine utilization dominate. Cradle-to-grave life-cycle assessments were performed, comparing a commercial-scale FDM machine printing in ABS plastic, a desktop FDM machine printing in ABS, a desktop FDM machine printing in PET and PLA plastics, a polyjet machine printing in its proprietary polymer, an SLA machine printing in its polymer, and an inkjet machine hacked to print in salt and dextrose. All scenarios were scored using ReCiPe Endpoint H methodology to combine …

The Use Of Jatropha Curcas To Achieve A Self Sufficient Water Distribution System: A Case Study In Rural Senegal, Alexandra Archer

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The use of Jatropha curcas as a source of oil for fueling water pumps holds promise for rural communities struggling to achieve water security in arid climates. The potential for use in developing communities as an affordable, sustainable fuel source has been highly recommended for many reasons: it is easily propagated, drought resistant, grows rapidly, and has high-oil-content seeds, as well as medicinal and economic potential. This study uses a rural community in Senegal, West Africa, and calculates at what level of Jatropha curcas production the village is able to be self-sufficient in fueling their water system to meet drinking, …

A Management Framework For Municipal Solid Waste Systems And Its Application To Food Waste Prevention, Krista L. Thyberg, David J. Tonjes

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

Waste management is a complex task involving numerous waste fractions, a range of technological treatment options, and many outputs that are circulated back to society. A systematic, interdisciplinary systems management framework was developed to facilitate the planning, implementation, and maintenance of sustainable waste systems. It aims not to replace existing decision-making approaches, but rather to enable their integration to allow for inclusion of overall sustainability concerns and address the complexity of solid waste management. The framework defines key considerations for system design, steps for performance monitoring, and approaches for facilitating continual system improvements. It was developed by critically examining the …

Mathematical Modeling For Platform-Based Product Configuration Considering Total Life-Cycle Sustainability, Tian Lan

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

Many companies are using platform-based product designs to fulfill the requirements of customers while maintaining low cost. However, research that integrates sustainability into platform-based product design is still limited. Considering sustainability during platform-based design process is a challenge because the total life-cycle from pre-manufacturing, manufacturing and use to post-use stages as well as economic, environmental and societal performance in these stages must be considered. In this research, an approach for quantifying sustainability is introduced and a mathematical model is developed for identifying a more sustainable platform. Data from life-cycle assessment is used to quantify environmental factors; criteria from the Product …

A Framework For Sustainable Material Selection For Multi-Generational Components, Ryan T. Bradley

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

The early stages of a product’s design are a critical time for decisions that impact the entire life-cycle cost. Product designers have mastered the first generation; however, they currently do not have the ability to know the impact of their decisions on the multi-generational view. This thesis aims at closing the gap between total life-cycle information and the traditional design process in order to harbor sustainable value creation among all stakeholders involved. A framework is presented that uses a combination of a life-cycle costing methodology and an evolutionary algorithm in order to achieve a sustainability assessment for a true multi-generational …

Sustainability And Economic Analysis Of Propylene Carbonate And Polypropylene Carbonate Production Processes Using Co2 And Propylene Oxide, Yaşar Demirel

Yaşar Demirel Publications

Currently, the industrially important polycarbonates are synthesized from bisphenol A and diphenyl carbonate, which are highly toxic and hence other feasible alternatives are preferable. Following the considerable advances on the catalyst for the synthesis of carbonates from CO₂ and propylene oxide (PO), industrial scale processes for the productions of propylene carbonate (PC) and polypropylene carbonate (PPC) have been designed and simulated with sustainability and economic analyses. The CO₂ is supplied by a nearby bioethanol plant, while the PO from a petrochemical process. The first part of the study is for the production of 200 million lb/year cyclic PC …

Advanced Sustainable Concrete Materials For Infrastructure Applications, Kaylea Ann Smith

Masters Theses

"This study was performed to examine the effects of cement replaced by high volumes of Class C fly-ash on durability characteristics of concrete up to 120 days. Specifically, this study investigates possibility of amending American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) to allow High Volume Fly-ash (HVFA) concrete to cure until later ages prior to testing instead of 28 days. Five mix designs were compared with varying fly-ash percentages from 0 to 70% (by total cementitious mass). No other additives were present in any of the five mix designs. Water-to-cementitious ratio (w/cm) and total cementitious material remained constant as 0.40 …