Environmental Engineering

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NSF Directorate for Engineering Division
of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and
Transport Systems (CBET) Environmental
Engineering and Sustainability Cluster Environmen
tal Engineering Program Director - Paul L.
Bishop - pbishop_at_nsf.gov

• ? Trends in Research Education
• ? Program Topical Areas
• ? Research Project Examples

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Trends in Research and Education

• ? Tools and techniques in areas of measurements,
  analysis, modeling, and synthesis are becoming
  increasingly sophisticated
• ? This requires interfacing with more science
  and engineering areas
• ? Refocusing on large natural systems and on
  more holistic (cross-media) studies at large
  spatial scales while also expanding in the
  opposite direction nano-science, molecular and
  genetic analysis
• ? Developing broad theoretical/conceptual
  underpinnings by embracing concepts of industrial
  ecology, sustainability, and ecological
  engineering

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Environmental EngineeringProgram at NSF

• The Environmental Engineering program
• supports innovative science-based engineering
• research and education with the goals of
• ? restoring and maintaining the chemical,
  physical, and biological quality of the Nations
  water, air and land environment
• ? preventing human exposure to toxic chemicals
  and pathogenic bacteria
• ? achieving sustainable development of natural
  resources.

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Some hot topical areas in the Environmental
Engineering programs
Slide 1 of 2
Pollutant Fate/Transformation ? Environmental
fate and reaction kinetics concerning the
persistence of antibiotics, pharmaceuticals,
personal-care products, and other emerging
contaminants in the environment Nano-technol
ogy in Environmental Engineering ? Applications
of nano-materials in water and wastewater
treatment, air pollution control, and
ground-water remediation environmental and
health implications of nano-materials
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Some hot topical areas in the Environmental
Engineering programs
Slide 2 of 2
Biotechnology in Environmental Engineering ?
Innovative coupling of physical-chemical and
microbial processes Information Technology in
Environmental Engrg ? Development of advanced
sensors and data acquisition systems,
internet-based data sharing and information
processing Complex Environmental Systems ?
Ability to model and predict across a wide
range of spatial and temporal scales
real-time measurement and management
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Unsolicited Research Projects FY 2009 Grants -
Selected from 82 awards in FY 2009
Slide 1 of 6

• Treatment Technology Research
• ? Bacterial adhesion and metabolic activity
• ? Development of highly efficient Aquaporin
• based membranes for aqueous separations
• ? Identifying and quantifying active
  denitrifiers
• in complex environments using functional
• gene expression analysis
• ? Complete reductive dechlorination of
• trichloroethylene (TCE) by
• non-Dehalococcoides microorganisms
• ? Desalinated water and stability of drinking
• water distribution systems

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Unsolicited Research Projects FY 2009 Grants -
Selected from 82 awards in FY 2009
Slide 2 of 6

• Environmental Sensing Research
• ? Rapid, sensitive and sequential detection of
  E. coli and
• total coliforms
• ? Use of chiral tracers to determine cycling of
  POPs in
• stream ecosystems
• ? TT virus A potential indicator of human
  enteric viruses
• in source and drinking waters
• ? Stable isotope probing to assess
  bioremediation of
• LUST contaminants
• ? Physiologically-coupled biosensing approaches
  for
• real-time monitoring of environmental
  contaminants
• ? Functional analysis of biofilms in premise
  plumbing

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Unsolicited Research Projects FY 2009 Grants -
Selected from 82 awards in FY 2009
Slide 3 of 6

• Nanomaterial Research
• ? Environmental impacts of nanomaterials in
• engineered water systems on microorganisms
• ? Capacitive deionization using asymmetric
• nanoporous oxide electrodes
• ? Using nanotechnology to identify pollution
  sources
• in the landscape
• ? Novel activated carbon nanofiber biofilm
  support
• for enhanced wastewater treatment

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Unsolicited Research Projects FY 2009 Grants -
Selected from 82 awards in FY 2009
Slide 4 of 6

• Water Resources and Watershed Management
• ? Integrated modeling for watershed management
• ? EDC compounds in a Rocky Mountain stream
• ? Fate and transport of biocolloids in beach
  sand
• ? Fundamental understanding of mercury cycling
• in lakes
• ? The role of sunlight in controlling fecal
  indicator
• bacteria and human virus concentrations in
• recreational waters

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Unsolicited Research Projects FY 2009 Grants -
Selected from 82 awards in FY 2009
Slide 5 of 6

• Phytoremediation Research
• ? Enhanced phytoremediation using endophytes
• ? Heterotrophic degradation of and
  bioaugmentation
• for emerging trace contaminants in
  wastewater
• ? Removal of wastewater-derived contaminants in
• treatment wetlands
• ? Enhancing phytoremediation through
• callus-culture induced variations in
• wetland plants

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Unsolicited Research Projects FY 2009 Grants -
Selected from 82 awards in FY 2009
Slide 6 of 6

• Air Pollution Research
• ? Optimization of urban designs for air quality
• and energy efficiency
• ? Effects of volatility and morphology on
  vehicular
• emitted ultrafine particle dynamics
• ? Adsorption and desorption of air pollutants on
  
• engineered nanomaterials
• ? Integrated scheme for treating hydrophobic
• air contaminants

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Agent-based Modeling of Wastewater
Bacteria Andrew Schuler - Duke University
Design and operation of biological wastewater
treatment systems relies on mathematical modeling
of the biological processes of waste degradation.
This project is pioneering the use of
agent-based modeling in these systems, which
entails the modeling of individual bacteria as
they move through bioreactors, as opposed to the
conventional "lumped" approach, whereby bacteria
are modeled with respect to their bulk
concentrations. The Schuler lab has built and
applied a new agent-based simulation program
(DisSimulator), which can model thousands of
bacteria as they move through a given system.
Using this program they have revealed several
"emergent behaviors" that may lead to improved
system design and operation for improved plant
performance. Highlight ID 15483
CBET-0607248
Figure 1 Hydraulic residence time (HRT)
distributions for 1 completely mixed flow reactor
(CMFR), 2 or 6 CMFRs in series
Figure 2 Predicted state (microbial storage
product concentrations) variability in a
bacterial population responsible for phosphorus
removal in an anaerobic reactor. Green squares
are glycogen, blue triangles are
polyhydroxyalkanoates, and red circles are
polyphosphate.
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Multiple Genomic Targets Advance Water
Pollution Control Technology Amy Pruden -
Virginia Tech
Recent advances in molecular biology have
presented a tremendous opportunity to herald the
next generation of environmental science and
engineering in which biological process design
considers the actual microbial communities
involved in catalyzing treatment. The Pruden
team is developing new genome-enabled tools and
using advanced statistical approaches to
synthesize the information obtained in order to
determine which tools best predict the
performance of bioremediation systems. They are
also applying these tools for advancing
consideration of inoculum as a viable aspect of
engineered design of bioremediation
systems. CBET-0547342
Figure 1 Schematic overview of a
sulfate-reducing permeable reactive zone (SR-PRZ)
remediating acid mine drainage. The
lignocelluloses-based matrix (wood chips)
provides a slow-release source of organic carbon
for sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB). SRB produce
sulfides, which bind heavy metals and remove
them from the water while at the same time
neutralizing acidity.
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Debromination of PBDEs in Aquatic Sediments
An Li University of Illinois-Chicago Karl
Rockne University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) (Figure
1), have been used extensively as flame
retardants in consumer goods for fire protection.
As a result, rapid accumulation of PBDEs has
occurred literally everywhere in the environment.
In aquatic systems, the majority of the PBDEs are
deposited in sediments, particularly those with
high degrees of bromination. The basic hypothesis
of this proposal is that PBDEs, which have
accumulated in the environment over the past four
decades, have debrominated in the sediments
of heavily contaminated water bodies. Comparison
between PBDEs and polychlorinated biphenyls
(PCBs) in their production history, congener
distribution patterns in commercial products,
carbon-halogen bond energy, and the time scale of
environmental contamination, etc, supports their
hypothesis. CBET-0756428 CBET-0756320
Figure 1. Structure of PBDEs.
Figure 2. Sampling at Maple Lake, Illinois with
a gravity piston corer (Wildco Co.). A push
corer (Great Lakes Water Institute, Milwaukee,
Wisconsin) has also been used for sediment
sampling in this project.
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Enhancing Gas-Particle Transport Processes for
Improved Mercury Emissions Control from
Coal-fired Power Plants
Herek Clack - Illinois Institute of
Technology In 2005, the U.S. EPA issued the
Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR), making the U.S.
the first country to regulate mercury emissions
from coal-fired power plants (CFPPs). The CAMR
emissions caps are designed to reduce total
mercury emissions by 70 by 2018. This project
represents a combined experimental and numerical
modeling collaboration between research groups at
the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and
the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (UM) to
provide fundamental understanding of mercury
removal processes and to develop enhanced mercury
removal processes. Highlight ID 15480
CBET-0607292
Figure 1 Helium-Neon laser used for
instantaneous particle Mass loading and particle
agglomeration measurements.
Figure 2 The trajectories of 1, 5, and 10
micron particles in a turbulent round jet.
Computational resources provided by the
Minnesota Supercomputing Institute.
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