Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Hydrogeology And Stable Isotope Investigations Of A Landfill Impacted Site In Southwest Michigan, Eliot Anong Atekwana

Dissertations

The Cork Street landfill in the City of Kalamazoo is unlined and constructed in glacial drift material. Although water quality in some of the landfill monitoring wells is poor, the degree of the landfill’s influence to groundwater, wetlands and Davis Creek located downgradient of the landfill is unknown. The objective of this study is to evaluate the degree of the landfill’s impact in this region through hydrologic and stable isotope analysis.

Site characterization using geophysical surveys and specific conductance measurements indicates highly conductive shallow groundwater probably attributable to groundwater contamination. Hydrologic evaluation of this region shows that groundwater flows towards …

Reductive Dehalogenation Of Chlorinated Aromatic And Aliphatic Hydrocarbons Under Anaerobic Conditions, Monica Turner Togna

Dissertations

The process of reductive dehalogenation involves the removal of a halogen substituent from a molecule with the concurrent addition of electrons to the molecule, resulting in a more reduced and often less toxic product. Anaerobic bacteria have the potential to utilize hazardous chlorinated aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons as electron acceptors in metabolic reductive dehalogenation processes.

In experiments performed with chlorinated aromatic compounds a highly enriched anaerobic culture stoichiometrically converted 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (2,4,6-TCP) to 4-monochlorophenol. Dehalogenation occurred only in alkaline media (pH 8-9) at concentrations of 2,4,6-TCP up to 1 mM. Data indicated that the dehalogenating organism did not fit into any …

Scaling Up Of Water-Based Organic Reactions, Chen Gu

Dissertations

Three water-based organic reactions, Diels-Alder, epoxidation of olefins, and free-radical bromination have been investigated as an approach to pollution prevention. The first two systems were scaled-up by at least a factor of 20. These reactions are of special interest to the pharmaceutical and speciality chemical industries. The photo-induced free-radical bromination of alkanes with bromine in water was studied in a two-phase system. Experimental results show that all reactions have advantages resulting from being conducted in water, such as reaction rate acceleration, reaction selectivity increase, and the absorption of water-soluble gas byproduct by solvent water.

The effects of stirring rates, temperature, …

Effect Of Vitamin Supplementation On Biodegradation Of Aliphatic Hydrocarbons And Diesel Fuel, Susmita Guptapal

Dissertations

Bioremediation of hazardous wastes is proven to be environmentally benign and most cost effective technology when proper conditions are provided. However, commercialization of this method still requires comprehensive research to enhance the degradation rate to make the technology more acceptable for implementation. In this research a unique approach to increase the rate of biodegradation by vitamins supplementation was studied.

Five vitamins, niacin, biotin, folic acid, thiamin and pantothenic acid were selected for the present study. Different short chain (C₈ and C₉), and long chain (C₁₆ and C₁₇) aliphatic hydrocarbons and diesel fuel (a mixture …

Continuous Monitoring Of Volatile Organic Compounds Using Microtrap Based Gas Chromatographic Systems, Yonghua Xu

Dissertations

Continuous analysis allows a representative portion of a sample to flow continuously through an analytical instrument, which gives analytical information with little or no delay in time. A microtrap is a small diameter tube packed with adsorbents in series. When a gaseous sample containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) flows through the microtrap, the VOCs can be trapped selectively by adsorbents. Then a pulse of electrical current is applied to the microtrap. This rapid heating results in a desorption that can act as a sharp injection for GC separation. Thus the microtrapped sample is the total amount of VOC present in …