Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences
News & Announcements
Seminar Schedule
Spring, 2012 Seminars are held every Friday from 2:30 - 3:30pm in 100 Brackett Hall Auditorium. Seminars for candidates are held on Thursdays from 3:30 - 4:30pm in the Rich Lab Auditorium.
JAN
19
19
Faculty Candidate
TBA
TBA
JAN
26
26
Faculty Candidate
TBA
TBA
FEB
02
02
Faculty Candidate
TBA
TBA
FEB
10
10
Caye Drapcho, Clemson
TBA
TBA
FEB
17
17
Margaret Thompson, Clemson
TBA
TBA
FEB
24
24
Ron Falta, Clemson
TBA
TBA
MAR
02
02
TBD
TBA
TBA
MAR
09
09
Pradeep Talwani, USC
TBA
TBA
MAR
16
16
TBD
TBA
TBA
MAR
30
30
Jack Pashin, Geological Survey of Alabama
TBA
TBA
APR
06
06
Siaka Yusuf, Dow
TBA
TBA
APR
13
13
Jessica High, CH2M Hill
TBA
TBA
APR
20
20
Sean Norman, USC
TBA
TBA
Departmental News & Announcements
The Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences (EEES) welcomes the Biosystems Engineering undergraduate and graduate degree programs into the Department. Biosystems Engineering has approximately 70 undergraduates and approximately 25 graduate students within the MS and PhD programs. We are welcoming the expertise of 4 faculty members: Dr. Caye M. Drapcho, Dr. Charles V. Privette III, Dr. Tom O. Owino, and Dr. Terry H. Walker.
Dr. Ron Falta, together with Gerald Blount and Alvin Siddall from the Savannah River Site, have received a United States Patent for a new method of capturing carbon dioxide during the manufacturing of cement. The patent, titled “Carbon Dioxide Capture from a Cement Manufacturing Process”, involves the use of a two-stage calcining unit, with a low temperature (900 C) unit and a high temperature (1400 C) unit. The low temperature calciner converts limestone and dolomite into calcium and magnesium oxides, and produces pure carbon dioxide as a waste product. This carbon dioxide can be sold, or stored in deep geologic formations. Some of the resulting calcium oxide from the process can then be used in a continuous open loop to react with carbon dioxide in the calciner flue gas to form calcium carbonate, which is recycled in the low temperature unit. The cement components leaving the low temperature unit are combined in a high temperature (1400 C) calciner to form the cement clinker, which is then milled into cement.
This new design differs from the conventional cement making process, where all the feed minerals are heated together in a single high temperature calciner, and the carbon dioxide produced from the calcining process is mixed with the flue gases and discharged to the atmosphere.
World cement production is nearly 3 billion tons per year, releasing approximately 2.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is almost 10% of the annual worldwide total emission of carbon dioxide.
In May a group of Clemson engineering students led by EEES graduate students Christina Anderson (MS, EE&S, 2011) and Catherine Ruprecht (PhD, EE&S) traveled to Liberia, West Africa to implement sustainable engineering projects which the students had worked on in their Creative Inquiry class. The Clemson group worked alongside a group from University of Michigan and a group from University of Liberia. The five undergraduate students built a solar powered dehydrator, a biogas producing latrine, two basketball hoops, a playground and an electricity generating merry-go-round.
This new design differs from the conventional cement making process, where all the feed minerals are heated together in a single high temperature calciner, and the carbon dioxide produced from the calcining process is mixed with the flue gases and discharged to the atmosphere.
World cement production is nearly 3 billion tons per year, releasing approximately 2.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is almost 10% of the annual worldwide total emission of carbon dioxide.
Congratulations to Dr. Brian Powell and Dr. Mark Schlautman! They have been selected to lead a 3-year $1M project funded by the DOE Nuclear Energy University
Partnership. Dr. Linfeng Rao of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Dr. Heino Nitsche of University of California-Berkeley will collaborate on the project. Clemson will use 50% of the funds and LBL and UC-Berkeley will share the other 50%. The project is titled “Quantification of cation sorption to engineered barrier materials under extreme conditions” and will focus on quantifying interactions of risk driving radionuclides with engineered barrier materials used in radioactive waste repositories. Studies will be conducted under the high temperature and high ionic strength conditions expected within the repositories.
Student News
In May a group of Clemson engineering students led by EEES graduate students Christina Anderson (MS, EE&S, 2011) and Catherine Ruprecht (PhD, EE&S) traveled to Liberia, West Africa to implement sustainable engineering projects which the students had worked on in their Creative Inquiry class. The Clemson group worked alongside a group from University of Michigan and a group from University of Liberia. The five undergraduate students built a solar powered dehydrator, a biogas producing latrine, two basketball hoops, a playground and an electricity generating merry-go-round.David Hisz (PhD, EE&S) won an Outstanding Student Paper Award for his presentation at the 2010 Fall AGU Meeting in San Francisco, California. According to the AGU citation, Dave’s “presentation was recognized as among the best of a strong group of student presenters, which sets an example for his fellow students and the entire AGU membership.” His award-winning paper was entitled: “Characterization of Fractured Rock during Well Tests using Tilt-X, a Portable Tiltmeter and Extensometer for Multi-Component Deformation measurements,” and it is part of the NSF-funded research he is doing for his PhD dissertation. Dave’s advisor is Dr. Larry Murdoch.
This summer Lee Hering (MS, EE&S) worked with ESG Operations at the Warner Robins Water and Wastewater Plants in Warner Robins, GA, where as an intern he worked closely with several engineers in the early stages of a multi-million dollar upgrade to the plants. His advisor is Dr. Cindy Lee.
Salmatta Ibrahim (MS Hydrogeology) recently received an award from the Margaret McNamara Memorial Fund (MMMF) administered by the United Nations World Bank. This was a competitive application process, and she was one of only 13 people to receive a MMMF award. Salmatta was presented with a check that she will use towards expenses while studying at Clemson. Her advisor is Dr. Mark Schlautman.
Dr. Cindy Lee's research group is deploying a distributed sensor system (DTS) along Town Creek near the Sangamo Weston Superfund site. 
Over a kilometer of fiber optic cable will be placed in the stream and used to measure temperature changes. This system will identify groundwater flux and possibly fractures within the stream bed. (bottom) David Hahn (MS, Hydrogeology) is testing the system before taking it on site along Town Creek.
Dr. Cindy Lee's research group is deploying a distributed sensor system (DTS) along Town Creek near the Sangamo Weston Superfund site. Over a kilometer of fiber optic cable will be placed in the stream and used to measure temperature changes. This system will identify groundwater flux and possibly fractures within the stream bed. (bottom) David Hahn (MS, Hydrogeology) is testing the system before taking it on site along Town Creek.
April Gillens (PhD, EE&S) was awarded the 2011 Department of Homeland Security Nuclear Forensics Fellow. She is currently characterizing organic solvents associated with nuclear reprocessing via stable isotopes. This work will provide signatures of organic reprocessing solvents and their degradation products. “The goal of study is to determine whether organic solvents found in the
environment have been used in nuclear reprocessing and to understand the steps of reprocessing the solvents experienced. As a graduate student April will identify methods to retrieve nuclear material from environmental samples and distinguish solvents used in nuclear reprocessing from industrial solvent use. April’s advisor is Dr. Brian Powell.
Dr. Tom J. Temples (MS Geology, 1976 and Adjunct Associate Professor) assumed the position of President-Elect of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Division of Environmental Geosciences (DEG) on July 1, 2011. In July 0f 2012 he will assume the position of President for a 1 year term. Dr. Temples has been a member of the AAPG since 1978 and is charter member of DEG when the division was formed in 1992.
Recent graduate John Kroon (MS Hydrogeology, 2011) began employment as Associate Geologist with Chesapeake Energy Corporation in Oklahoma City. John will be presenting research results from his thesis, “Biomarkers in the Lower Huron Shale (Upper Devonian) as Indicators of Organic Matter Source, Depositional Environment, and Thermal Maturity,” at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Meeting in Washington, DC in late September. John received an award last year from AAPG in support of his thesis research.
Clemson University was well represented at the 2011 Battelle International Symposium on Bioremediation and Sustainable Environmental Technologies, held in Reno, Nevada, from June 27-30:
- Barajas, F., Lehmicke, L., Freedman, D. “Anaerobic Biodegradation of 1, 4-Dioxane at Two Former Industrial Sites in California.”
- Yu, R., Peethambaram, H. S., Verce, M. F., and Freedman, D. L. “Kinetic Interactions During Organohalide Respiration of 1, 2-Dichloroethane and Ethylene Dibromide.”
- Freedman, D. L., Yu, R., and Hickey, M. R. “Evaluation of Reductive Dechlorination of Chlorinated Ethenes at Low pH Levels.”
- Hall, R., Murdoch, L., Freedman, D. L., and Riha, B. “Aerosol Delivery for Biostimulation/Bioaugmentation of Contaminated Vadose Zones.”
Recent Publications:
Bridhikitti, A., and Overcamp, T.J., “Optical Characteristics of the Southeast Asia’s Regional Aerosols and Their Sources,” Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 61 (7): 747-754, (July, 2011).
Ye, X., X. Zhang, E. Morgenroth, and K.T. Finneran, 2011, Anthrahydroquinone-2,6-Disulfonate (AH2QDS) increases hydrogen molar yield and xylose utilization in growing cultures of Clostridium beijerinckii, Applied Microbiol Biotechnol, In Press DOI: 10.1007/s00253-011-3571-1
Wei, Na, and K.T. Finneran, 2011, The Influence of Ferric Iron on Complete Dechlorination of Trichloroethylene (TCE) to Ethene: Fe(III) Reduction Does Not Always Inhibit Complete Dechlorination, Environ. Sci. Technol., 45(17), 7422-7430
Kwon, M.J., E. O’Loughlin, D. Antonopoulos, and K.T. Finneran, 2011, Geochemical and Microbiological Processes Contributing to the Transformation of Hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) in Contaminated Aquifer Material, Chemosphere, 84(9), 1223-12.
Ye, X., X. Zhang, E. Morgenroth, and K.T. Finneran, 2011, Anthrahydroquinone-2,6-Disulfonate (AH2QDS) increases hydrogen molar yield and xylose utilization in growing cultures of Clostridium beijerinckii, Applied Microbiol Biotechnol, In Press DOI: 10.1007/s00253-011-3571-1
Wei, Na, and K.T. Finneran, 2011, The Influence of Ferric Iron on Complete Dechlorination of Trichloroethylene (TCE) to Ethene: Fe(III) Reduction Does Not Always Inhibit Complete Dechlorination, Environ. Sci. Technol., 45(17), 7422-7430
Kwon, M.J., E. O’Loughlin, D. Antonopoulos, and K.T. Finneran, 2011, Geochemical and Microbiological Processes Contributing to the Transformation of Hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) in Contaminated Aquifer Material, Chemosphere, 84(9), 1223-12.
Viet Dang(PhD, EEES) and Diana Delach (PhD, EnTox) gave platform presentations at the American Chemical Society meeting in Denver, CO. Viet spoke on “Accumulation of airborne polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) by Rhododendron maximum” in the symposium “Air-Surface Interactions: Chemistry from Molecular to Global Climate Scales.” Diana as the recipient of a joint award from SETAC and ACS presented “Chiral signatures of subsidiary PCBs in spiders along an exposure gradient” in the “C. Ellen Gonter Environmental Chemistry Awards” symposium. Both Viet and Diana work with Dr. Cindy Lee.
Alumni News
Dr. Tom J. Temples (MS Geology, 1976 and Adjunct Associate Professor) assumed the position of President-Elect of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Division of Environmental Geosciences (DEG) on July 1, 2011. In July 0f 2012 he will assume the position of President for a 1 year term. Dr. Temples has been a member of the AAPG since 1978 and is charter member of DEG when the division was formed in 1992.
Recent graduate John Kroon (MS Hydrogeology, 2011) began employment as Associate Geologist with Chesapeake Energy Corporation in Oklahoma City. John will be presenting research results from his thesis, “Biomarkers in the Lower Huron Shale (Upper Devonian) as Indicators of Organic Matter Source, Depositional Environment, and Thermal Maturity,” at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Meeting in Washington, DC in late September. John received an award last year from AAPG in support of his thesis research.
Hem Joshi (PhD, BE, 2011) was recognized as Clemson Outstanding Graduate Researcher. Hem a PhD graduate student in biosystems engineering was selected by the Graduate Fellowship Committee as a Clemson University Outstanding Graduate Researcher. Outstanding Graduate Researchers receive a $1,000 award. Hem's research interests include the optimization and characterization of biodiesel production from various feed-stock's and authored 7 peer-reviewed articles since 2008. He is a former recipient of the Wade Stackhouse Fellowship. Hem received both MS and PhD degrees in biosystems engineering from Clemson University.