Environmental Engineering Research
Graduate research opportunities exist in the areas of air, water quality and pollution control; hazardous waste minimization, treatment, and control; and waste clean-up. Current students are actively involved in government and industry sponsored projects in air and water quality engineering, biotechnology applied to minerals wastes, and land disposal of waste sludge. Specific areas of current research include the water chemistry of heavy metals, and hazardous organics; ground and surface water modeling; air emission inventories; biosorption of heavy metals; wetland research, land reclamation, atmospheric diffusion processes; and cleanup of "RCRA" and "superfund" sites.
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Mercury Research |
Pets as biosamplers
OF mining-related
contaminants
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Environmental Graduate Students Excel
Mercury Research
One of our graduate students, Joey Phillips, is working on a metallic filter designed to remove mercury from the flue gas of coal-fired power plants. For his thesis project, he has been working in the lab and in the field to determine the filter’s mercury removal efficiency, and initial test results show mercury removal efficiencies above 90%. Joey received his B.S. from our program in May of 2004. He studied in Australia during spring 2006 semester. His advisor is Dr. Kumar Ganesan.
Pets as Biosplamplers for
Mining-Related Contaminants
Stacie Barry and Trisha Smith are also alumni of the Department (1995 and 2004, respectively). They are working on a research project funded by the Mine Waste Technologies Program (MWTP) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with Dr. Peterson as their advisor. During the summer of 2005, they collected hair samples from 250 pets (primarily dogs) in Butte to characterize chronic exposure to mining-related contaminants in the community and to study efficacy of residential cleanup efforts.
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