Research Facilities
The Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences (EEES) laboratories and facilities at Clemson University have locations on and off campus. The on-campus Brackett Hall location houses offices, classrooms and additional laboratories associated with the Geology, Biosystems Engineering, and Environmental Engineering undergraduate programs. The Biosystems Research Complex (BRC) on the main campus is a research facility that houses research groups from various disciplines. The L.G. Rich Environmental Research Laboratory and the Clemson Environmental Technologies Laboratory (CETL) are state-of-the-art facilities located in the Clemson University Advanced Materials Center, about eight miles from the main campus. A majority of the department’s research activity occurs in Rich Lab and CETL.
EEES laboratories are equipped with instrumentation for different types of environmental research. The Equipment page lists the analytical equipment available in the EEES laboratories. This equipment is accessible to EEES faculty, students, and researchers on a need basis. The great majority of the analyzers are computer-controlled and equipped with autosamplers.
Department Equipment
Brackett Hall
Several research labs are available in Brackett Hall. The Thin Section Lab contains instruments that allow the complete preparation of standard thin sections for petrographic study or polished sections for microprobe analysis. The Petrography Lab includes petrographic microscopes. The Hydrogeophysics laboratory has equipment packages from National Instruments for performing real-time imaging. The Undergraduate Field Research Lab has a suite of instruments and data loggers available for watershed monitoring.
Biosystems Research Complex
The Biosystems Research Complex (BRC) serves as a focal point for biotechnology research. The Complex was built with the support of the South Carolina General Assembly and includes 108,000 square feet of laboratory space. A few labs in the Biosystems Research Complex house research programs in environmental engineering, with a focus on environmental microbiology. The BRC is a research facility occupied by research groups from various departments of the University, including groups from EEES.
Rich Laboratory
The Rich Lab houses laboratory space available for conducting sponsored research in a total of 24 laboratories ranging in size from 300 to 900 square feet. There are several dedicated purpose laboratories, including an instrument room equipped with state-of-art instruments, a low-level counting laboratory, a radiochemical separations laboratory, an organic separations laboratory, a biotechnology laboratory, a laminar-flow clean room, an aquifer characterization lab and a two-story open-bay laboratory.
Clemson Environmental Technologies Laboratory
The Clemson Environmental Technologies Laboratory (CETL) is adjacent to Rich Laboratory. CETL houses facilities for EEES faculty whose primary research and teaching interests focus on nuclear environmental science and engineering. The facility is a premier radioactive and mixed waste technology development and demonstration laboratory. The EEES department maintains three radiochemistry laboratories within CETL, which is licensed by the by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control to conduct research with a range of fission/activation.
