Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Microbial Degradation Of Sulfonamide Antibiotics, Rachel Levine

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Certain microbes can transform antibiotics in the environment. However, little is known about the identity of these microbes and their antibiotic biotransformation processes. The objectives of this study were to (1) isolate bacterial strains capable of transforming antibiotics, (2) determine the biotransformation kinetics of antibiotics, (3) characterize the effects of background carbons on the biotransformation kinetics, and (4) identify biotransformation products under various environmental conditions. Sulfadiazine (SDZ) was used as the model antibiotic in this study due to its frequent occurrence in livestock wastes. Surface soil from a cattle feedlot was collected to enrich potential SDZ degrading bacteria. A mixed …

Municipal Composting And Organic Waste Diversion: The Case Of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Michael E. Hoppe

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

It is estimated that 40% of food is wasted in the United States; representing $165 billion in wasted resources. A vast majority of that wasted food is ultimately placed in landfills where it decomposes and releases harmful greenhouse gases (GHGs). In fact, food waste alone is responsible for 23% of annual methane emissions for the US. This has a huge impact on global climate change due to the potency of methane as a greenhouse gas. Currently only 5% of the food waste produced is recovered across the nation. Source reduction would be the best solution to reducing this food waste, …

Drinking Water: Hard Water (Calcium And Magnesium), Sharon O. Skipton, Bruce I. Dvorak

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Hard water isn’t a health hazard but can be a nuisance within the home. Learn how to test water, interpret the results, and choose a treatment.

Water described as “hard” contains high amounts of dissolved calcium and magnesium. Hard water is not a health risk but can be a nuisance because of mineral buildup on plumbing fixtures and poor soap and/or detergent performance.

Water is a good solvent and picks up impurities easily. As water moves through soil and rock, it dissolves very small amounts of minerals and holds them in solution. Dissolved calcium and magnesium are the two most …

Drinking Water Treatment: Salt-Free Water “Softener” Options, Bruce I. Dvorak

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

New no-salt technologies may be effective in treating hard water, but consumers should carefully investigate product claims prior to buying a specific treatment device.

Hard water is not a health risk, but many Nebraska consumers find hard water to be a nuisance because of mineral buildup on plumbing fixtures, including water heaters; unsightly film on glass and crystal wares; and poor soap and/or detergent performance. Water described as “hard” contains high amounts of dissolved calcium and magnesium, which are positively charged contaminants called cations.

Water hardness often is expressed as grains of hardness per gallon of water (gpg) or milligrams …

Werc Task #1 - Efficiency And Particulate Matter Emissions Testing Of Wood Burning Heating Units, Jonathan A. Shumaker

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

A design of a method for calculating the efficiency and particulate matter emission rates was developed for use on wood stoves. The project was completed for the WERC competition which is an international design contest. The prevalence of wood burning as a form of heating, current EPA regulations, and current market conditions were major factors in forming the necessity of this testing method. Design was not limited to outlining the design specifications, the apparatus was built and run. Optimization of the method continued until completion of the project. If the method would continue to be improved then it would be …

Assessing Toxicity Of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds In Wastewater For Water Reuse, Ryan Duchanois

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Reclaiming treated wastewater for potable water use may be necessary to supplement drinking water sources in water scarce regions. However, Snyder et al. (2003) indicates that endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) are commonly found in wastewater effluents and natural waters around the world. These compounds with endocrine disrupting potential are typically found in personal care products, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides. Furthermore, according to Lemanik et al. (2007), typical wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove EDCs.

For the purpose of water reuse, benchmarking wastewater treatment for endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) is necessary. The cytotoxicities of five EDCs (namely, amoxicillin, acetaminophen, triclosan, …

Removal Of High And Low Levels Of Ammonium From Industrial Wastewaters, Gregory Bock

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Over 2×10^11 kilograms of ammonia are produced globally per year by the Haber-Bosch process which combines molecular hydrogen and nitrogen to synthesize ammonia. Most is used for fertilizer and agriculture while the remaining is used for other purposes including industrial processes and explosives. Explosives used in the mining industry are commonly ammonium nitrate (����4����3)-based. Excess ammonia and nitrate which can be dissolve into mine runoff water during blasting. Ammonia in mine and mineral wastewater can range from 20-110 mg/L. Ammonia is also present in several types of industrial wastewater such as caustic soda solutions used in the oil re-refining industry …

Ozonation In Water Reuse: Formation And Mitigation Of N-~Nitrosodimethylamine, Erica J. Marti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Formation of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) is a substantial concern for drinking water and water reuse. NDMA, a probable human carcinogen, is formed when water is disinfected with chloramines and ozone. This research focused on three issues regarding NDMA formation and mitigation. The first issue involved understanding the compounds (i.e., precursors) present in water and wastewater that react with ozone to form NDMA. Model precursors were identified and molar yields for NDMA formation were determined. The model precursors form high amounts of NDMA with ozone, but form very little NDMA with chloramines, which means there are two distinct groups of NDMA precursors: …

Perchlorate Bioremediation: Controlling Media Loss In Ex-Situ Fluidized Bed Reactors And In-Situ Biological Reduction By Slow-Release Electron Donor, Sichu Shrestha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The main concern of perchlorate exposure through drinking water is its effects on the production of thyroid hormone, which is important for human metabolism and child’s brain development. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has listed perchlorate in the contaminant list as well as in the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring rule.

The extent of perchlorate contamination can be categorized by the level of contamination into parts per million (ppm) levels, typically in locations where perchlorate was manufactured, and parts per billion (ppb) levels where perchlorate was used for various purposes. Ion-exchange is generally adopted for treating ppb levels of perchlorate while …

Anaerobic Digestion Process Stability And The Extension Of The Adm1 For Municipal Sludge Co-Digested With Bakery Waste, Morris Elya Demitry

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The anaerobic digestion process is used to treat and convert waste organic matter to biogas (principally methane and carbon dioxide) through biological, chemical and physical reactions. The biogas can be used as a source of energy recovery. In order to increase the biogas production rate, two different kinds of waste (municipal wastewater treatment sludge and bakery waste) were mixed together to enhance the anaerobic process and increase the biogas production in pilot scale reactors. The process succeeded in increasing biogas production and at the same time kept the process of treatment effective when high rates of organics were fed to …

Hydrogeological Conceptual Model Of La Villa River Watershed, Republic Of Panama, Maria G. Castrellon Romero

Honors Scholar Theses

Groundwater in Panama is a valuable and poorly understood resource. Its exploitation has increased 75% in the past decade, reaching a total value of 700,000 m³/day or 185 million gallons per day (MGD). Climate change has caused a lengthening of the dry season, which has reduced precipitation and streamflow, resulting in surface water scarcity during this period. Nevertheless, it has not been possible to determine the extent to which groundwater sources have been affected by these factors since systematic monitoring of groundwater levels has not been implemented in Panama. With support from National Institution of Drinking Water Supply …

Design And Testing Of Sorbents For Co2 Separation Of Post-Combustion And Natural Gas Sweetening Applications, Jiajun He, John To, Peter Psarras, Jianguo Mei, Jen Wilcox

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

In post-combustion processes, sorbents with both high capacity and selectivity are required for reducing the cost of carbon capture. Although physisorbents have the advantage of low energy consumption for regeneration, it remains a challenge to obtain both high capacity and sufficient CO₂/N₂ selectivity at the same time. A novel N-doped hierarchical carbon has been developed, which exhibits record-high Henry’s law CO₂/N₂ selectivity among physisorptive carbons while having a high CO₂ adsorption capacity. Specifically, the synthesis involves the rational design of a modified pyrrole molecule that can co-assemble with the soft Pluronic template via …

Techno-Economic Challenges Associated With Biomass Energy Utilization And Ccs, Carl Bozzuto

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

Despite the recent agreement by world leaders regarding the need for reductions in CO2 emissions from the global energy system, there will still be substantial amounts of fossil fuels utilized for the next few decades. According to IEA estimates, there will likely be an “overshoot” of the CO₂ concentration that is estimated to be needed to restrain average global temperatures increases in the range of 1.5–2˚C. As a result, biomass energy has been proposed as one means to reduce net CO₂ emissions and, perhaps, even reduce the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere. One approach has been …

Evaluation Of Physical Adsorbents For Post-Combustion Co2 Capture, Youssef Belmabkhout

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

CO₂ capture using physical adsorbents such as activated carbon, zeolites, and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted a lot of attention because of the technical capability of adsorption technology using such separation agents to retrofit the energy demanding liquid amine scrubbing process. Nevertheless, this will be conceivable only if the separation agents (adsorbents) in question fulfil many unambiguous attributes in terms of porosity, CO₂ affinity, kinetics, energetics, stability, throughout the right capture mechanism, in addition to the adsorbents cost.

In this paper we report recent study about the evaluation of physical adsorbents for CO₂ capture from simulated flue …

Metallic Membranes For N2 Separation & Post-Combustion Co2 Capture Improvement, Simona Liguori, Kyoungjin Lee, Jennifer Wilcox

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

Carbon (CO₂) capture represents an important role in the reduction greenhouse gas emissions. Among various CO₂ capture technologies currently investigated, post-combustion capture allows for the retrofitting of existing plants and industrial units. Today, the amine scrubbing is considered the most competitive method for CO₂ removal in the flue gases from power plants in comparison to other technologies. Nevertheless, recent work has shown that the energy requirement for solvent recovery can decrease the overall efficiency of the power plants up to 16%¹. Moreover, additional costs may occur in the solvent absorption technology because of solvent …

Co2 Capture Using Nanoporous Tio(Oh)2/Tetraethylpentamine, Maryam Irani, Maohong Fan, Khaled Gasema

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

In this work, an inorganic-organic CO2 sorbent was prepared by immobilizing tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA) onto nanoporous titanium oxyhydrate (TiO(OH)2). The prepared sorbents were characterized using X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. At the optimal TEPA loading of 60 wt.% on TiO(OH)2, its CO2 sorption capacity reached 3.1 mmol CO2/g-sorbent for 1 vol.% CO2 in N2 along with ~1 vol.% H2O at 60°C. Studies of adsorption kinetics and thermodynamics showed that the activation energies for CO2 adsorption and desorption of TiO(OH)2/TEPA are 38.31 kJ/mol and 44.51 kJ/mol, respectively. Its low …

Nitrogen-Functionalized Porous Carbons For Enhanced Co2 Capture, Peter Psarras, Jennifer Wilcox

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

The global consequences of increased anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are well documented. To avoid the catastrophic long-term damages associated with climate change, much attention has been devoted to the development of CO₂ emission mitigation strategies. A present challenge in the mitigation of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions involves the design of less energy- and water-intensive capture technologies. Traditional capture methods, e.g. MEA solvent scrubbing, have prohibitive regeneration costs, and recent concerns in drought-ridden states like California have brought these water-intensive processes under increased scrutiny. Sorbent-based capture represents a promising solution to the aforementioned hurdles, as they do not incur the …

Direct Air Capture Versus Post Combustion Capture For Coal Fired Power Plants: Energy Balance And Life Cycle Environmental Assessment, Christoph Meinrenken

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

Direct air capture (DAC) has been suggested as a possible alternative to post combustion capture (PCC), as a way to lower the climate impact of fossil-based electricity generation. However, various literature suggests that the much lower concentration of CO2 in ambient air (compared to flue gas) will cause DAC to require ~3x higher energy consumption than PCC per ton CO2 captured, in turn leading to impractically high parasitic loads, costs, and potentially other adverse environmental impacts of DAC for purposes of mitigating emissions from e.g. coal-fired power plants. Here we present a comparative techno-economic and life cycle assessment (LCA) of …

Optimal Molecular Design Of Poly (Ionic Liquids) For Co2 Capture From The Atmosphere, Kun Ge, Tao Wang

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

Polymeric ionic liquids (PILs) are promising CO₂ adsorption materials for that they combine the unique properties of ionic liquids with the flexibility and properties of macromolecular architectures. Previous studies have demonstrated that a carbonated-functionalized quaternary ammonium based PIL could adsorb CO₂ from atmosphere when dry and release CO2 when wet, which constituted a moisture swing cycle, which provides an economical approach for air capture. Moreover, the performance of the PIL (such as CO₂ affinity, reaction kinetics, swing size and hydrophobicity), could be improved owing to its fine tunability. To find out its optimal structure, molecular simulation was …

Pathway To Achieve Negative Co2 Emissions - Combining Biomass With Ccs, Antti Arasto, Janne Karki, Kristin Onarheim

CO2 Summit II: Technologies and Opportunities

The urgency to stabilize the global temperature rise at 1.5°C as highlighted in Paris COP21 and the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report calls for solutions that can remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The ability of carbon negative processes to offset historic emissions and emissions across different sectors is also highlighted in recent scenarios by IEA and WEC. Achieving negative CO₂ emissions by removing CO₂ from the atmosphere is possible by applying carbon capture in processes utilizing biomass (bio-CCS). Biomass has the capability of withdrawing and storing atmospheric CO₂. As a result, CO₂ released during biomass thermo-chemical …