Engineering Commons^™

Potato Processing In The Home: Sustainability And Nutritional Impacts, Aubin Payne

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Potatoes are the world's fourth most consumed crop. Their versatility and long shelf-life make them a staple food for millions of people worldwide. Still, the increasing consumption of highly processed potato products in developed countries has damaged the public's appreciation of potatoes as a valuable source of essential nutrients. Additionally, as public awareness of environmental sustainability increases, the average consumer is more likely to value processing methods that mitigate environmental damage.

Researchers simulated several home storage and processing conditions to find out how nutrition and environmental impact are affected by the home processing timeline. Then, a nutrient analysis, life cycle …

Development Of An Equation To Correlate Brite Tank Temperature And Pressure To Beverage Carbonation Concentration, Devyn Meyer

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Carbo Rock-It™ is an invention created to carbonate beverages at craft breweries. One of the Carbo Rock-It’s main features is that it does not add a significant volume of undissolved gas bubbles to the brite tank in which the beverage is carbonated. This may allow temperature and pressure readings from the brite tank to be used to determine the concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide in the beverage continuously in real time. This eliminates the need for manual samplings, which could save breweries time and allow for more controlled, accurate carbonation. The goal of this project was to develop an …

Exploring The Effects Of Varied Land Use On Elemental Concentrations Within Streams, Logan Jennings

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

It is well documented that human activity influences the chemistry of surrounding waters. As such, it is possible that there is a link between land use within a watershed and the chemical composition of the stream. The objectives of this study are to determine if varied land use does affect the concentrations of macronutrients and trace elements present in the streams of Northwest Arkansas, and if so, to determine what extent urban and agricultural development are responsible for these changes. Water samples were collected across 19 streams in the Northwest Arkansas region between January and March of 2022. Water samples …

Effect Of Hydrogen Peroxide On Algae And Microcystin In Control And Lake Waters, Tatiana Castillo Hernandez

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Cyanobacteria are photo-autotrophic organisms with a worldwide distribution, which can result in Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) producing toxins. One of the most common strains of cyanobacteria is Microcystis, which produces the most abundant cyanotoxin, microcystin. In this study, we analyzed the effect of H₂O₂ on algae and microcystin using both lake and reagent grade water. The first objective was to determine the effect of H₂O₂ on algae and cyanobacteria in lake water that was nutrient enriched. The second objective was to detect the effect of H₂O₂ at oxidizing microcystin in …

Light Intensity Control For Plc-Based Hydroponic Demonstration System, Christian Hitt

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In order to demonstrate a skill set obtained through the University of Arkansas Biological Engineering, a group of students and I developed a hydroponic system where plants could be grown in a chamber. System parameters such as air quality, irrigation, and lighting were controlled by a Programmable Logic Computer (PLC) and an array of sensors and actuators. Each student focused on a certain aspect of this system, mine being the lighting. Developing this system involved researching the relationship between light intensity and plant growth, designing a system to suspend the lights above the growth chamber, and develop a system to …

Estimating Irrigation In Rice Fields With A Water Balance Approach, Kristen Trinh

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Global food production must increase to meet the demand associated with increased population growth, so irrigation water use will continue to rise. Therefore, it is important to monitor water usage particularly when an irrigation flowmeter is unavailable. A field water balance was created for a selection of rice fields in East-central Arkansas under observation in 2018 and 2019. From those, irrigation inputs are deduced from the water balance alone. First, each field had sensors that collected water table level (WTL) data. Next, other water inputs and outputs such as precipitation and evapotranspiration (ET) were collected from two modeled sources. The …

Comparing Economics Of Traditional Carbonation Method And A Novel Carbonation Invention For Craft Beer, Kira Simonson

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The traditional method for the carbonation of beer includes bubbling CO₂ through a pressurized brite tank until the desired level of carbonation concentration is reached. The gas either dissolves in the liquid volume or passes through the beer into the gas headspace above the bulk volume of beer. The gas that passes through the liquid can strip the beer of flavors, and this undissolved gas is vented to the atmosphere. To reduce the gas lost to the atmosphere, the CO₂ is dissolved into the beer slowly over a long period of time, which increases gas-use efficiency but sacrifices …

Design Of A Deep Flow Technique Hydroponic System And An Elementary Education Module For Tri Cycle Farms, Cady Rosenbaum

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hydroponics is an agricultural technique in which plants are grown without soil and are instead grown in water systems that include nutrients and other growth-supporting media. Hydroponic systems typically reside inside, so that the system can be fully controlled by the grower by manipulating the temperature and amount of light the plants receive. The benefits of growing plants using hydroponics include: the amount of water used is reduced, it is less labor to grow organic produce with an indoor system, less space used, and it allows for growing food anywhere. Tri Cycle Farms is planning for the construction of a …

Design Of A Shallow-Aero Ebb And Flow Hydroponics System And Associated Educational Module For Tri Cycle Farms, Julie Halveland

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Tri Cycle Farms, whose main mission is to reduce food insecurity in their community, is a non- profit urban farm in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The “Tri” in their name refers to the three parts of their foundation: giving a third of their yield to volunteers, giving a third to local food pantries, and selling a third to sustain the farm and demonstrate the economy of local food production. They want to expand on the third part and have a vision of building a hydroponic greenhouse with the intention that it will create more crops to sell and give, as well as …

Drivers Of On-Farm Performance Of Irrigation Water Management Practices: Empirical Evidence From Eastern Arkansas, Jacob Askey

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Unsustainable agricultural practices are putting a strain on freshwater supplies in many parts of the world. More efficient irrigation techniques are going to be critical to feed a growing population. Data from the 2016 Arkansas Irrigation Survey was used to assess the adoption of three Irrigation Water Management (IWM) practices: multiple inlet rice irrigation, tailwater recovery, and storage reservoirs. Results indicate that these practices do not always lead to reported pumping time reductions, a proxy for water use savings. Large variations in pumping time reduction are observed across producers for all three practices. A Tobit model was used to examine …

Internal Design Of A Hydroponics Greenhouse For Tri Cycle Farms, Sarah Gould

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hydroponics is the agricultural technique of growing plants without soil, using other growing media and added nutrients in a solvent. It is an attractive agricultural method over conventional agriculture because it is more water efficient, is less labor intensive, yields higher quality crops in less time, and is easier to control. According to the Digital Journal, “hydroponics crop value is anticipated to grow to USD 27.29 Billion by 2022 at an estimated CAGR of 6.39% from 2015 to 2020” (Sawant, 2016). Alongside this growing market acceptance for hydroponics, there is also a local demand that requires only a small transportation …

Nutrient Limitation Of Algal Growth In Fishery Lakes, Madeline Ludwig

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study investigated the effect of nutrient addition on algal growth in three United States Forest Service lakes for fishery management in Arkansas. In fishery managed lakes, fertilization works by manipulating algae growth, a basal food resource in lakes, to promote the growth of the fish population. For the nutrient addition experiments, water was collected from each lake in cubitainers and spiked with nutrients; the treatments included the control, nitrogen (+N), phosphorus (+P), and nitrogen and phosphorus (+N +P). When algal growth was visually observed, a water sample was collected from each cubitainer and analyzed for chlorophyll-α. The results showed …

Chloride Salt Inhibition On Lipid Production In Wastewater-Grown Algae For Biofuel Production, Will Richardson

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Algae are increasingly being recognized as useful organisms for many applications in today’s world. Their ability to remove nitrogen, phosphorus, and trace metals from water while adding oxygen to water makes them an attractive tertiary treatment technology in municipal wastewater treatment facilities. At the same time, algae produce lipids and carbohydrates that are useful for biofuel production, and they are not a human food crop unlike many biofuel feedstocks. In this study the effect of increased chloride concentrations in wastewater was assessed on the ability of two species of algae, Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus dimorphus, to function as a …

Optimizing Genetic Manipulation Of Methanogens Through Faster Cloning Techniques, Merrisa Jennings

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Methanogenesis is the biological production of methane. Only anaerobic archaea known as methanogens are capable of such a metabolic feat. They have strict living conditions and substrate sources which determine their rate of metabolism. This is of particular importance from a greenhouse gas reduction perspective or biogas capturing perspective. One of the best ways to optimize methanogen methane production is via genetic manipulation. The current procedures are timely though, therefore a faster cloning processes should be developed. The objective of this study was to optimize a premade genetic transformation kit known as the Gibson Kit. The Gibson Kit was supposed …

Cfd Model For Ventilation In Broiler Holding Sheds, Christian Heymsfield

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Broiler production in Arkansas was valued at over $3.6 billion in 2013 (University of Arkansas Extension of Agriculture). Consequently, improvement in any phase of the production process can have significant economic impact and animal welfare implications. From the time poultry leave the farm and until they are slaughtered, they can be exposed to harsh environmental conditions, both in winter and in summer. After road transportation, birds are left to wait in holding sheds once they arrive at the processing plant, for periods of approximately 30 minutes to two hours. This project was interested in this holding shed waiting time during …