Matching Items (19)
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Description

Enzyme-induced carbonate precipitation (EICP) is a biocementation technique that produces comparatively fewer carbon dioxide emissions than traditional cementation. However, the use of synthetic reagents for EICP is costly, and the process produces an ammonium byproduct which is a harmful pollutant. This study utilizes fresh urine as a source of urea

Enzyme-induced carbonate precipitation (EICP) is a biocementation technique that produces comparatively fewer carbon dioxide emissions than traditional cementation. However, the use of synthetic reagents for EICP is costly, and the process produces an ammonium byproduct which is a harmful pollutant. This study utilizes fresh urine as a source of urea and calcium-rich zeolites as an ammonium adsorbent and a source of calcium ions for the EICP cementation technique. Batch hydrolysis and adsorption experiments were conducted to determine the effects of zeolite type, zeolite form, and solution composition on ammonium adsorption and calcium release. Cementation experiments were then conducted to determine the effects of different hydrolysis and adsorption times on ammonium adsorption and calcium carbonate precipitation. The results showed that calcium-rich chabazite could be used as a source of calcium ions and as an effective adsorbent of ammonium for EICP. Additionally, synthetic, fresh urine and real, fresh urine had comparable ammonium adsorption and calcium release trends. Finally, inclusion of a pre-hydrolysis step reduced the ammonium adsorption and calcium release, but longer adsorption times lead to calcium carbonate precipitation outside of the sand column, which is an undesirable outcome for soil biocementation; even with this limitation, the calcium carbonate content of sand columns ranged from 0.48% to 0.92%, which signifies the potential of the proposed process for cementation, given a higher initial concentration of urea.

Created2021-05
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Description
Chlorine is a typical disinfectant that is used in water treatment. There are different forms and types of chlorine that are used as disinfectants, City of Tempe uses free chlorine. Regulations require that a residual is detected to ensure drinking water is “safe.” Large commercial buildings can undergo difficulties with

Chlorine is a typical disinfectant that is used in water treatment. There are different forms and types of chlorine that are used as disinfectants, City of Tempe uses free chlorine. Regulations require that a residual is detected to ensure drinking water is “safe.” Large commercial buildings can undergo difficulties with maintaining a chlorine residual on every floor due to issues with underusage or lack of occupancy. Monitoring systems can activate an automatic flow of fresh water throughout the building or in a specific location based on set levels of chlorine within the monitoring system. There are different approaches to monitoring chlorine residual. Chlorine sensors are the typical process, but can be very expensive due to replacement materials required to promote further use of the sensor and acquire accurate measurements. Also, the chlorine system may require continual maintenance due to membrane replacement and management of the pressurized flow, which is required for accurate measurements. Oxidation reduction potential (ORP) is an efficient alternative from a cost perspective and accurate if the relationship between chlorine and ORP is understood.
ContributorsBrashears, Kayla Luree (Author) / Boyer, Treavor (Thesis director) / Richard, Rain (Committee member) / School of Sustainable Engineering & Built Envirnmt (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
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Description
As we already know, fresh water is essential to human life as it sustains and replenishes our bodies. Water sustainability is clearly an important issue that need to be addressed in our world of growing demand and shrinking resources. The ASU Future H2O program seeks to make a difference in

As we already know, fresh water is essential to human life as it sustains and replenishes our bodies. Water sustainability is clearly an important issue that need to be addressed in our world of growing demand and shrinking resources. The ASU Future H2O program seeks to make a difference in the development of water sustainability programs by performing experiments that convert urine into reusable water. The goal is to make reusable water processes become inexpensive and easily accessible to local businesses. This promises a significant environmental impact. In order to make the process of development more efficient we can combine engineering technology with scientific experimentation. As an engineering student and an advocate of water sustainability, I have a chance to design the front-end platform that will use IoT to make the experimental process more accessible and effective. In this paper, I will document the entire process involved in the designing process and what I have learned.
ContributorsTran, Phung Thien (Author) / Boscovic, Dragan (Thesis director) / Boyer, Treavor (Committee member) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Phosphate is a necessary and soon to be scarce nutrient needed for all life that is found in urine. Metal chlorides can be used to extract phosphate that can be converted into useful products, namely struvite a fertilizer. Different metal chlorides’ phosphate removal ability in urine were measured by testing

Phosphate is a necessary and soon to be scarce nutrient needed for all life that is found in urine. Metal chlorides can be used to extract phosphate that can be converted into useful products, namely struvite a fertilizer. Different metal chlorides’ phosphate removal ability in urine were measured by testing a molar equivalent amount of metal chloride tested at 5 minutes and 24 hours in duplicate. Phosphate removal was calculated using spectrophotometry and compared across the metal chlorides in a simulation in Visual MINTEQ, simple synthetic, full synthetic, and real urine for fresh and hydrolyzed urine. It was found that simple and full fresh synthetic urine had comparable results, but synthetic urine and real urine did not. It was also found that simple and full hydrolyzed synthetic urine are not very comparable. Overall, there was more precipitation in the real urine than the full synthetic urine and hydrolyzed urine. Time did not have a large effect on the removal trends between the same type of urine. CeCl3 performed the best for both fresh and hydrolyzed urine, and struvite produced more in hydrolyzed real urine rather than fresh.
ContributorsTripathi, Vedika (Author) / Boyer, Treavor (Thesis director) / Crane, Lucas (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainable Engineering & Built Envirnmt (Contributor)
Created2023-12
Description

This research aims to develop an understanding of how interventions designed to improve water quality in buildings can be used to mitigate Legionella pneumophila concentrations. Intervention methods can be described as any approach that can be used to improve microbial water quality. In order to provide a foundation of background

This research aims to develop an understanding of how interventions designed to improve water quality in buildings can be used to mitigate Legionella pneumophila concentrations. Intervention methods can be described as any approach that can be used to improve microbial water quality. In order to provide a foundation of background knowledge, a literature review was conducted to identify similar studies and collect relevant and timely research similar to the subject. The information gathered from the literature review was used to structure the sampling process and parameters. Using the research collected from the literature review, a review table was created to summarize the differences in the studies conducted and to determine research gaps. To categorize the studies, intervention methods, contaminants addressed, and water quality meta-data were differentiated for each of the articles. For the purpose of the sampling process, the three interventions analyzed consist of flushing, water heater set point change, and both flushing and water heater set point change. The locations of the sampling consisted of the city drinking water inlet, the basement janitor's closet, basement shower, 2nd floor, 3rd floor, and 7th floor break rooms and restrooms of the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV at ASU. For the flushing intervention, the sampling results demonstrated an increase in free and total chlorine concentration post flushing which aligns with the research found in the literature review. In addition, it was observed that iron concentrations drastically increased for both the cold and hot water by flushing. There was a significant decrease detected for ATP concentrations post flush in the hot line. However through the sampling session, the flushing intervention did not yield statistically significant results for Legionella concentrations.

ContributorsKotta, Vishnu Vardhan Reddy (Author) / Cahill, Molly (Co-author) / Call, Kathryn (Thesis director) / Johnson, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / The Design School (Contributor) / School of Sustainable Engineering & Built Envirnmt (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description

This research aims to develop an understanding of how interventions designed to improve water quality in buildings can be used to mitigate Legionella pneumophila concentrations. Intervention methods can be described as any approach that can be used to improve microbial water quality. In order to provide a foundation of background

This research aims to develop an understanding of how interventions designed to improve water quality in buildings can be used to mitigate Legionella pneumophila concentrations. Intervention methods can be described as any approach that can be used to improve microbial water quality. In order to provide a foundation of background knowledge, a literature review was conducted to identify similar studies and collect relevant and timely research similar to the subject. The information gathered from the literature review was used to structure the sampling process and parameters. Using the research collected from the literature review, a review table was created to summarize the differences in the studies conducted and to determine research gaps. To categorize the studies, intervention methods, contaminants addressed, and water quality meta-data were differentiated for each of the articles. For the purpose of the sampling process, the three interventions analyzed consist of flushing, water heater set point change, and both flushing and water heater set point change. The locations of the sampling consisted of the city drinking water inlet, the basement janitor's closet, basement shower, 2nd floor, 3rd floor, and 7th floor break rooms and restrooms of the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV at ASU. For the flushing intervention, the sampling results demonstrated an increase in free and total chlorine concentration post flushing which aligns with the research found in the literature review. In addition, it was observed that iron concentrations drastically increased for both the cold and hot water by flushing. There was a significant decrease detected for ATP concentrations post flush in the hot line. However through the sampling session, the flushing intervention did not yield statistically significant results for Legionella concentrations.

ContributorsCahill, Molly (Author) / Call, Kathryn (Co-author) / Johnson, Elizabeth (Co-author) / Kotta, Vishnu (Co-author) / Hamilton, Kerry (Thesis director) / Boyer, Treavor (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainable Engineering & Built Envirnmt (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description

This research aims to develop an understanding of how interventions designed to improve water quality in buildings can be used to mitigate Legionella pneumophila concentrations. Intervention methods can be described as any approach that can be used to improve microbial water quality. In order to provide a foundation of background

This research aims to develop an understanding of how interventions designed to improve water quality in buildings can be used to mitigate Legionella pneumophila concentrations. Intervention methods can be described as any approach that can be used to improve microbial water quality. In order to provide a foundation of background knowledge, a literature review was conducted to identify similar studies and collect relevant and timely research similar to the subject. The information gathered from the literature review was used to structure the sampling process and parameters. Using the research collected from the literature review, a review table was created to summarize the differences in the studies conducted and to determine research gaps. To categorize the studies, intervention methods, contaminants addressed, and water quality meta-data were differentiated for each of the articles. For the purpose of the sampling process, the three interventions analyzed consist of flushing, water heater set point change, and both flushing and water heater set point change. The locations of the sampling consisted of the city drinking water inlet, the basement janitor's closet, basement shower, 2nd floor, 3rd floor, and 7th floor break rooms and restrooms of the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV at ASU. For the flushing intervention, the sampling results demonstrated an increase in free and total chlorine concentration post flushing which aligns with the research found in the literature review. In addition, it was observed that iron concentrations drastically increased for both the cold and hot water by flushing. There was a significant decrease detected for ATP concentrations post flush in the hot line. However through the sampling session, the flushing intervention did not yield statistically significant results for Legionella concentrations.

ContributorsJohnson, Elizabeth (Author) / Call, Kathryn (Co-author) / Cahill, Molly (Co-author) / Kotta, Vishnu (Co-author) / Hamilton, Kerry (Thesis director) / Boyer, Treavor (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainable Engineering & Built Envirnmt (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description

This research aims to develop an understanding of how interventions designed to improve water quality in buildings can be used to mitigate Legionella pneumophila concentrations. Intervention methods can be described as any approach that can be used to improve microbial water quality. In order to provide a foundation of background

This research aims to develop an understanding of how interventions designed to improve water quality in buildings can be used to mitigate Legionella pneumophila concentrations. Intervention methods can be described as any approach that can be used to improve microbial water quality. In order to provide a foundation of background knowledge, a literature review was conducted to identify similar studies and collect relevant and timely research similar to the subject. The information gathered from the literature review was used to structure the sampling process and parameters. Using the research collected from the literature review, a review table was created to summarize the differences in the studies conducted and to determine research gaps. To categorize the studies, intervention methods, contaminants addressed, and water quality meta-data were differentiated for each of the articles. For the purpose of the sampling process, the three interventions analyzed consist of flushing, water heater set point change, and both flushing and water heater set point change. The locations of the sampling consisted of the city drinking water inlet, the basement janitor's closet, basement shower, 2nd floor, 3rd floor, and 7th floor break rooms and restrooms of the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV at ASU. For the flushing intervention, the sampling results demonstrated an increase in free and total chlorine concentration post flushing which aligns with the research found in the literature review. In addition, it was observed that iron concentrations drastically increased for both the cold and hot water by flushing. There was a significant decrease detected for ATP concentrations post flush in the hot line. However through the sampling session, the flushing intervention did not yield statistically significant results for Legionella concentrations.

ContributorsCall, Kathryn (Author) / Cahill, Molly (Co-author) / Johnson, Elizabeth (Co-author) / Kotta, Vishnu (Co-author) / Hamilton, Kerry (Thesis director) / Boyer, Treavor (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainable Engineering & Built Envirnmt (Contributor)
Created2023-05
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Description
The current level of carbon dioxide in ambient air is increasing and reinforcing the severity of global warming. Several techniques have been developed to capture the gas directly from the air. Moisture swing absorption (MSA) is a mechanism through which a reactive surface, namely resin beads, absorbs carbon dioxide

The current level of carbon dioxide in ambient air is increasing and reinforcing the severity of global warming. Several techniques have been developed to capture the gas directly from the air. Moisture swing absorption (MSA) is a mechanism through which a reactive surface, namely resin beads, absorbs carbon dioxide when dry and releases it when wet. The ionic complexity of the surface of the bead interacts with CO2 when H2O contents are low, and CO2 diffuses as bicarbonate or carbonate. Hence, diffusion-drift-reaction equations describe the moving species behavior MS sorbent. A numerical model has been developed previously applying finite difference scheme (FDS) to estimate the evolution of species concentrations over uniform time and space intervals. The methodology was based on a specific membrane and bead geometry. In this study, FDS was employed again with modifications over the boundary conditions. Neumann boundary condition was replaced by Robin boundary condition which enforced diffusion and drift fluxes at the center of the sorbent. Furthermore, the generic equations were approximated by another numerical scheme, Finite volume scheme (FVS), which discretizes the spatial domain into cells that conserves the mass of species within. The model was predicted to reduce the total carbon mass loss within the system. Both schemes were accommodated with a simulated model of isolated chamber that contained arbitrary sorbent. Moreover, to derive the outcomes of absorption/desorption cycles and validate the performance of FVS, Langmuir curve was utilized to obtain CO2 saturation in the sorbent and examine two scenarios: one by varying the partial pressure of CO2 (PCO2) in the chamber at constant H2O (PH2O), or changing PH2O at constant PCO2. The results from FDS approximation, when adjusting the center with Robin boundary condition, show 0.11% lower carbon mass gain than when applying Neumann boundary condition. On the other hand, FVS minimizes the mass loss by 0.3% lower than the original total carbon mass and achieves sorbent saturation without any adjustment. Moreover, the isotherm curve demonstrates that increasing PH2O reduces CO2 saturation and is dependent on the linear and non-linear correlations used to estimate water concentration on the surface.
ContributorsMejbel, Meteb (Author) / Lackner, Klaus (Thesis advisor) / Boyer, Treavor (Committee member) / Wang, Zhihua (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Global water consumption is at record levels, prompting concerns about sources, treatment, shortages, accessibility, and environmental impacts. While residential use is high due to population growth, industrial activities, particularly in sectors like textiles, are major contributors to overconsumption and pollution. The textile industry's emphasis on high-volume production, driven by capitalist

Global water consumption is at record levels, prompting concerns about sources, treatment, shortages, accessibility, and environmental impacts. While residential use is high due to population growth, industrial activities, particularly in sectors like textiles, are major contributors to overconsumption and pollution. The textile industry's emphasis on high-volume production, driven by capitalist economies and fueled by trends and social media, has led to increased consumption and waste, notably in the cotton sector, which has one of the highest water consumption rates. By investigating the three (3) top cotton-producing countries, an inference regarding global cotton production practices, water usage, and pollutant discharge was able to be made. These countries included India, China, and the United States. It was determined that the agricultural and post-harvest production conjointly sum to a water usage of about 10,000 m3 per ton. This includes water use for irrigation, various purification processes, serial dilutions for pollutants, cleansing, dyeing, and printing processes. In addition to high water consumption, the cotton industry is also a major source for pollution. These pollutants are due to many processes within the complete production process. The contaminants of concern within this investigation are azo dyes. These dyes are able to degrade into toxic byproducts called aromatic amines which are known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic, and irritating. They also reduce sunlight transmittance and increase the BOD and COD within aquatic ecosystems. Popular remediation methods include reverse osmosis, electrolysis, and biological decoloration – through fungi and prokaryotes – are used due to their high degradation efficiency of around 90%. Although this efficiency rate is quite high, a newer remediation method for azo dyes was found that has a 99.8% efficiency rate along with reusable materials. This process utilized silver nanoparticle-intercalated cotton fibers to completely remove the dyes from the tested waters. Through the investigation, inefficiencies and possible sustainability initiatives were determined that will hopefully become globally implemented in order to reduce the large impact of the cotton textile industry.
ContributorsMiller, Natalie (Author) / Boyer, Treavor (Thesis director) / Boyer, Mackenzie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainable Engineering & Built Envirnmt (Contributor)
Created2024-05