In recent years, non-renewable and non-biodegradable plastic packaging forms the majority of landfilled waste. These products, mainly made from Polyethylene Tetraphlatate (PET) and other polyolefins, have excellent durability and barrier properties, but take hundreds of years to degrade.
Much focus has been put on developing environmentally friendly alternatives to polyolefins...
Rapid and effective treatment of burn injuries is critical to prevent long term damage. Besides the pain associated with the burn injury due to damage and death of surrounding tissue and cells, there is a large risk for complications, particularly infection, following a burn injury. To address these risks, Meta...
With the incredible technological advancements that have come from the introduction of plastic many problems have arisen. Once plastics were created the value of items once they reached their end of life were lowered. Considering the majority of all plastics created are for packaging with single-use intentions people now dispose...
Human use of fossil fuels has caused a dramatic shift in the earth’s environment, with global temperatures rising and ecosystem health declining. The need for the human species to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels is apparent. This will be achieved by replacing conventional energy resources with sustainable alternatives, and...
On April 20th, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico malfunctioned leading to a 4.9 million barrel oil spill. The released oil affected marine life, coastal ecosystems, and the economic framework of the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf spill spurred research on absorbent materials and engineering...
This project was a continuation of work started by Mark Ingman after he was bothered by the amount of plastic sheeting used in agriculture in China. He was determined to develop an alternative to this environmentally destructive use of plastic by farmers. The plastic “mulch” is used to prevent weeds...
The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of recombinant lignin degrading enzyme, maganese peroxidise (rMnP), to detoxify inhibitors for theoptimization of ethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass. The negative effects of inhibitors: vanillin, furfural, hydroxymethylfurfural, and syringaldehyde on Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia pastoris yeast cell growth in revealed...
With the dominance of polyethylene as the building material for America's natural gas distribution system and a growing demand for natural gas, there exists and ever increasing need for improved methods of repairing damaged natural gas distribution pipe. This paper serves as the ground work for a multi-part study seeking...
There has been much controversy in recent years over the leaching of chemicals from plastic water bottles. In this study, two of the most common plastics used in water bottles, polyethylene terphthalate (PETE) and polycarbonate (PC) were studied. The leaching of the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) from polycarbonate (Nalgene ™, Camelback...
Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative (PNGC) operates the Landfill Gas to
Energy Facility at Coffin Butte Landfill in Corvallis, OR. At this facility, three internal
combustion engines use the landfill gas (predominantly methane and carbon dioxide) as
fuel to turn generators that produce enough electricity to power 1,800 average sized
homes....