Civil & Environmental Engineering

The carboxylate platform has emerged as a promising strategy to produce carboxylic acids from complex organic wastes. Limitations persist in the ability to direct product ion from short-chain (C1-C5) products to medium-chain (C6-C12) products, which have higher value, are more energy dense, and are easier to recover.

The 2001-2004 Washington D.C. lead in drinking water crisis (and its aftermath to the present day) is a unique case study in the history of engineering and scientific misconduct. The multi-year exposure of an unsuspecting population to very high levels of the best-known neurotoxin was perpetrated by multiple government agencies whose mission was to protect the public health. These agencies published falsified research reports, covering up evidence of harm and justifying ill-conceived interventions wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and which created even more harm.

The effectiveness of household water treatment (HWT) at reducing diarrheal disease is related to both the efficacy of the HWT method at removing pathogens and how people comply with HWT. Although many HWT methods are efficacious at removing or inactivating pathogens, their effectiveness within actual communities is decreased by imperfect compliance.

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are an entry point for pharmaceuticals in the environment, yet also a last line of defense against this chemical pollution. We lack a clear understanding of how WWTP process parameters, such as dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration, impact pharmaceutical fate. This study examines how reducing aeration, one strategy used to achieve energy savings at the WWTP, impacts pharmaceutical removal.

Abstract. The historical accumulation and improper disposal of anthropogenic waste materials and by-products have caused widespread contamination of groundwater and soils across the world. To mitigate uranium (U) contamination in groundwater, nanoparticulate iron sulfide minerals have received recent attention as potentially effective agents to retard uranium mobilization.

While it is now recognized that the control of nitrogen discharges to the environment is essential to preserve water quality, this has not always been the case.

Isoprene (methyl isobutene), a much neglected atmospheric trace gas, is a climate-active gas that is released into the atmosphere in similar quantities to that of methane, making it one of the most abundant trace gases. Large amounts of isoprene are produced by trees but also substantial amounts are released by microorganisms. The consequences on climate are complex. Isoprene can indirectly act as a global warming gas but in the marine environment it is also thought to promote aerosol formation, thus promoting cooling through increased cloud formation.