Chemical Engineering Seniors Recognized at Environmental Design Contest

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All three WERC teams and Roy Penney after the awards ceremony at the International Environmental Design Contest in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Three chemical engineering senior design teams participated in the 25th annual International Environmental Design Contest hosted by WERC, the Institute for Energy and the Environment and New Mexico State University. The contest took place March 29 to April 1 at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Museum in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The "Separation of Oil from Water" and "Electrocoagulation for Sulfate Removal" teams won first place in their tasks, and each team was awarded $2,500. The "Radiative Cooling to Night Sky" team won a Judge's Choice Award and $1,000. All three teams were advised by Roy Penney, chemical engineering professor.

The oil water separation teammates were Margo Allen, Jesus Martinez, Michael Olefsky, Casey Polk, Alfonso Puente, Kayli Quinton and Kristen Roberts. For their project, the team recovered oil from an oil and brine emulsion using ultrafiltration and coalescence. This technique can be used to remove oil from water used in hydraulic fracking and for production water.

"The most challenging part was that we couldn't get something to work until late in the semester, so we didn't have much time to finish everything that the judges expected of us," said Martinez. "However, we got it all done, and the competition was fun. We got to meet a lot of students from other schools, and seeing the fruits of our labor was pretty great."

The electrocoagulation teammates were Gina Densmore, Hailey Dunsworth, Sarah Edinger, Bethany Gregory, Manfred Jeske, Michael Layton and Emily Pruitt. Their task was to use electrocoagulation to remove sulfate from brackish water, which is well water with a high salt concentration.

"In the West, they have a lot of water shortages, and they don't know how to treat the groundwater," said Densmore. "So we were determining how to treat the water to make it drinkable."

The students built an electrocoagulation system and used it as a pretreatment for reverse osmosis. Using the system, they increased the solubility level from 30 to 70 percent, increasing the lifespan of the reverse osmosis membranes and in turn saving money.

The night sky cooling teammates were Mark Bush, James Cummings, William Dale, Andrew Dominick, Alex Enderlin and Tyler Winkel. The team made a prototype that proved the feasibility of rejecting heat from a chilled water stream to the night sky using radiation and convection. This process can greatly reduce cooling energy costs for facilities like Intel's plant in Rio Ranch, New Mexico.

"My favorite part of the process was getting to run the experimental apparatuses at night out in a field," said Dominick. "It took us four nights to get it streamlined so we could get good data that would be acceptable for the competition, but it was fun."

"For our team, the poster and the oral presentation were the most challenging parts of the competition," said Enderlin.

Find additional information about the 2015 International Environmental Design Contest.