environmental engineering
SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 16, 2009 -- Small amounts of oil leave a fluorescent sheen on polluted water. Oil sheen is hard to remove, even when the water is aerated with ozone or filtered through sand.
Researchers in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering believe they have pinpointed a pathway by which arsenic may be contaminating the drinking water in Bangladesh, a phenomenon that has puzzled scientists, world health agencies and the Bangladeshi government for nearly 30 years.
Continued improvement of climate forecasts is resulting in better information about what rainfall and streamflow may look like months in advance.
PITTSBURGH -- Carnegie Mellon University's Lucio Soibelman, H. Scott Matthews and Jose M.F.
Using data from Hurricane Katrina and four other destructive storms, researchers from Johns Hopkins and Texas A&M universities say they have found a way to accurately predict power outages in advance of a hurricane. Their approach provides estimates of how many outages will occur across a region as a hurricane is approaching.
The first demonstration of a renewable method for hydrogen production from wastewater using a microbial electrolysis system is underway at the Napa Wine Company in Oakville.
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Chemical engineers at Oregon State University have invented a new technology to deposit "nanostructure films" on various surfaces, which may first find use as coatings for eyeglasses that cost less and work better.
Ultimately, the technique may provide a way to make solar cells more efficiently produce energy.
DURHAM, N.C. -- The same properties of nanoparticles that make them so appealing to manufacturers may also have negative effects on the environment and human health.
However, little is known which particles may be harmful. Part of the problem is determining exactly what a nanoparticle is.
In the 2,000 or so years since the Roman Empire employed a naturally occurring form of cement to build a vast system of concrete aqueducts and other large edifices, researchers have analyzed the molecular structure of natural materials and created entirely new building materials such as steel, which has a well-documented crystalline structure at the atomic scale.
Disposal and recycling standards for old computer equipment and other electronic waste must be harmonized for this rapidly growing problem to be dealt with effectively across national borders. An analysis of the current rules and regulations is reported in the latest issue of the International Journal of Environmental Engineering.
Scientists worry that rising global temperatures accompanied by melting permafrost in arctic regions will initiate the release of underground methane into the atmosphere. Once released, that methane gas would speed up global warming by trapping the Earth's heat radiation about 20 times more efficiently than does the better-known greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.
A new earthquake-resistant structural system for buildings, just successfully tested in Japan, will not only help a multi-story building hold itself together during a violent earthquake, but also return it to standing up straight on its foundation afterward, true and plumb, with damage confined to a few easily replaceable parts.
Researchers have completed the first thorough, system-level assessment of the diversity of an environmentally important genus of microbes known as Shewanella. Microbes belonging to that genus frequently participate in bioremediation by confining and cleaning up contaminated areas in the environment.
Scientists from Stanford University have teamed up with Israeli and Jordanian researchers to protect the Gulf of Aqaba, a strategic waterway whose fragile marine ecosystem is vital to both Israel and Jordan. Participants in the NATO-funded project say they are bridging the Arab-Israeli political divide for the sake of science, peace and environmental conservation.
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- It takes just seconds for tall buildings to collapse during powerful earthquakes. Knowing precisely what's happening in those seconds can help engineers design buildings that are less prone to sustaining that kind of damage.
But the nature of collapse is not well understood.
