Two Engineering Teams Place First in Environmental Design Contest

Amanda Compean, Tai Huynh, Sarad Panta, Justin Norman, Alex Kreps, and Megan Dunn

Team members with the hydrogenator they built for the Environmental Design Contest

Hayden Dwyer, Elizabeth Ashley, Janvier Kwizera, Colton Knox, Elisabeth Yates

The students’ award winning system to remove hydrocarbons from water.

Two teams of engineering and Honors College students received awards at the 2013 WERC Environmental Design Contest, which was held in April at New Mexico State University.

One of the teams, which consisted of Amanda Compean, Megan Dunn, Tai Huynh, Alex Kreps, Justin Norman, and Sarad Panta and faculty adviser Jamie Hestekin, tied for first place in the Open Task category of the contest. For this category, teams chose a problem and designed a solution. The University of Arkansas team looked at renewable ways to make biofuels from feedstock. The team built a hydrogenator that could turn butyric acid into butanol. They started with  technology developed by U of A chemical engineering professor Mike Ackerson and modified it for their specific application. Creating a device that solved their design problem and was also portable enough to transport to the contest proved to be a learning experience for the students.

“Getting it running on a budget was a challenge,” said team member Megan Dunn. “We were buying pumps off E-bay. I didn’t even think that was possible.” Dunn explained that the completed device will be used by other U of A students and researchers in the future.

In addition to demonstrating their devices, the teams had to give a 15 minute oral presentation and a poster presentation. Dunn explained that because not all the judges were chemical engineers, the students had to hone their communications skills in order to come up with a presentation that was understandable to a broad audience.

The other U of A team, consisting of Elizabeth Ashley, Hayden Dwyer, Colton Knox, Janvier Kwizera, Elisabeth Yates and faculty adviser Roy Penney, also tied for first place in their task, as well as receiving and award for best oral presentation and receiving second place in the peer review portion of the contest. This team had a defined task: create a way to remove hydrocarbons from the fluid used in hydraulic fracturing.

When natural gas is extracted, the water that is used in the process becomes polluted with hydrocarbons. These molecules present a challenge for water treatment facilities, because they foul, or clog, the membranes that are used to filter water. The U of A team designed a process that uses a combination of ultra filtration and activated carbon to remove hydrocarbons from water.

The students learned about more than engineering through this contest. “We had to be able to organize a big project and break it down into smaller manageable pieces,” said Dunn. “We had to play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses and figure out what’s best for the team.”

Elisabeth Yates agreed. “The biggest thing we learned was adaptability—working through challenges, trying to stay positive.”

Many of these students receive support from scholarships, including the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship, the Arkansas Alumni Association Scholarship, the Arkansas Governor’s Scholarship, the Chancellor Scholarship, College of Engineering scholarships, Honors Fellows scholarships, the R.E.A.L. Razorback Scholarship, the Silas Hunt Scholarship, Transfer scholarships, the UA Leadership Scholarship, the University Academic Scholarship, the Ada and Tyrell Anderson 4-H Scholarship, the Dr. and Mrs. James Burns Ewart Memorial Scholarship, the Dr. Walter Wycliffe Owen and Lucille Rankin Owen Endowed Scholarship, the Gadberry Family Undergraduate Travel Award in Engineering, the Herman S. Seelig Endowed Memorial Scholarship, the International FIES Scholarship, the Jean Ostermeier Memorial Cancer Research Endowed Award, the John and Sophia Bushkuhl Endowed Scholarship in Chemical Engineering, the Ray L. Belknap Class of 1919 Scholarship and the Robert P. and Sunny Evans Endowed Chancellor’s Scholarship.