Missouri S&T researcher Glenn Morrison's paper about interfacial chemistry in indoor environments is the cover story for the latest issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology. You might know Morrison better from his previous research on greasy hair and clean air, in which he pointed out that unwashed hair absorbs more ozone than cleaner hair.

In ES&T journal, Morrison discusses the state of indoor ozone research.

Chemistry taking place at the “human surface” is emerging as an important factor in our understanding of ozone exposure and reaction products. This became apparent in experiments with simulated aircraft cabins, densely occupied with human subjects. The researchers concluded that aircraft occupants are major ozone sinks -- larger than the carpet, seats, and a soiled HEPA filter combined. On the basis of questionnaires completed by the aircraft occupants, they concluded that ozone and its oxidation products had adverse effects on 12 of 29 self-reported symptoms. Evaluation of individual aircraft surfaces, in small-chamber experiments, confirmed the reactivity findings (14). Thus, the collective reactivity of humans in densely occupied settings, such as a classroom, will reduce ozone exposure and increase exposure to skin-oil reaction products. In studies of ozone reaction with human hair, researchers found that the ozone reaction probability for hair is large (>10–4) relative to other indoor surfaces (15). Model analysis suggests that the boundary layer of air surrounding the body, including the breathing zone, may become significantly ozone-depleted and oxidation-product-rich.

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Every year, more than 30 billion water bottles are added to America's landfills, creating a mountainous environmental problem. But if research at Missouri S&T is successful, the plastic bottles of the future could literally disappear within four months of being discarded.

The days or weeks even that it might take you to throw away that plastic water bottle in back of your car is nothing compared to the time it takes to decompose in a landfill.

Try never.

But new research from Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla may help whittle decomposition time to about four months, helping solve a major environmental problem.

The research team is constructing new kinds of biodegradeable and bioavailable plastics to help reduce the amount of time the plastic stays in the nation's rapidly filling landfills. Bioavailable plastics contain substances that can be absorbed by living organisms such as plants.

Via St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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The recent investigation into the nation's drinking water by the Associated Press has shed light into work that's been conducted for numerous years by researchers like Craig Adams, the John and Susan Mathes Missouri Chair of Environmental Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Here's his take on pharmaceuticals and our drinking water.

“Clearly, the most important concern is that humans could become exposed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” Adams says. “The role of antibiotics in drinking water treatment plants in the formation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is currently unknown. However, the formation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the environment is one of the most important public health issues for the new century.”

Adams’ study shows that while many surface and groundwater supplies in the United States contain antibiotics, commonly used water treatment processes should be able to remove those antibiotics effectively, should health and environmental officials one day require and regulate their removal.

Continue reading "Offering insight into the Associated Press' drinking water probe" »

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Here's a post from a Brian Payne of Berryton, Kan., a senior in civil and environmental engineering at Missouri S&T, who is working with Dr. Joel Burken on an OURE project.

The overall objective of my project is to determine if it’s possible to combine two current remediation techniques, phytoremediation and permeable reactive barriers (PRBs), to improve the treatment and monitoring of chlorinated solvents in ground water. In particular, my research focuses on the parent compound perchloroethylene (PCE), a common industrial solvent (dry cleaning and metal degreasing) that is a suspected carcinogen. The compound is denser than water and sinks to the bottom of an aquifer if released into the environment. To remediate the problem, the subsequent contaminated groundwater plume is intercepted and treated. This can be done using plants such as poplar trees that uptake groundwater water volatilizing the solvents present. In the atmosphere the compounds are rapidly diluted and degraded, mitigating there toxicity. PRBs on the other hand are trenches that are dug and backfilled with some type of reactive media like metallic iron to intercept and chemically treat PCE.

Continue reading "Using trees to "clean up" chlorinated solvents in ground water" »

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Congratulations to Hannah Bruce of Saltillo, Miss., who is one of 15 students nationally to receive an Environmental Protection Agency fellowship to support her studies.

Bruce chose to research solid phase microextraction and how the technique can be used to identify groundwater pollutants. Using this method, a core sample from a tree in an area of contamination is removed and placed into a vial. Then a very thin needle is inserted into the container and comes into contact with the gas that surrounds the sample. The needle is then injected into the inlet of a gas chromatograph to get a reading of contaminant levels. A patent application has been filed for this method, which is only being developed at UMR.

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UMR's bachelor of science degree program in environmental engineering has been accredited by ABET Inc. UMR established the undergraduate major in 2002 and graduated its first environmental engineering student in 2005. A total of 39 students are currently enrolled in the state’s first environmental engineering undergraduate program, one of the few available in the Midwest.

More here.

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A team of UMR researchers led by Craig Adams, the John and Susan Mathes Chair of Environmental Engineering, have discovered concentrations of leachable arsenic and lead in excess of drinking water standards in a number of sediment and soil samples it collected from New Orleans parishes in October 2005, less than 2 months after Hurricane Katrina devastated that area of the Gulf Coast. The research, published recently in the journal Environmental Science and Technology (full article, news release), detailed the researchers' analysis of 46 of the 238 samples the team gathered. “The highest leachable concentrations of lead and arsenic in sediment were observed in the Broadmoor District in Orleans Parish,” Adams says. “These levels could potentially pose a health issue if significant exposure occurred.”

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• Who: Craig Adams, an expert in environmental engineering
  
• What: Adams will share how UMR students are bringing sustainable, safe drinking water and sanitation to communities in Central America. He'll also provide an overview of recent UMR research on innovative technology for controlling agriculture, industrial and municipal pollution of drinking water.
  
• Where: The Living Zoo, located on the north side of the Saint Louis Zoo
  
• When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 21
  
• Why: To make science accessible to all people. The Saint Louis Zoo and the Academy of Science-St. Louis co-sponsor an annual science seminar and Adams will give the final lecture in this year's series.

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Jay Switzer is the star of this month's edition of TechnoFiles, as he talks about his efforts to help officials in Washington, D.C., understand why high levels of lead were found in the city's water.

In 2004, Switzer began a project to determine if a chemical used by water districts to disinfect the water supply (monochloramine) actually raised lead levels in the water -- it does.

Grab the mp3 here. Like what you hear? Go ahead and subscribe directly to TechnoFiles in iTunes, Yahoo or supply the following URL to your podcast receiver: www.mst.edu/podcast/sample.rss. Or browse the episode archive and listen online at Yahoo.

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Imagine living in a liquid with the same pH as ammonia that is 10 times saltier than seawater. Sounds like the setting for a science fiction novel, but it's not. The super salty and slowly vanishing Soap Lake in Washington state is populated with some newly discovered bacteria, which, according to a UMR researcher, may be able to clean up some of humanity's pollution.

UMR environmental microbiologist Melanie Mormile is working with Montana State University chemical engineer and Central Washington University microbiologist Holly Pinkart to identify bacteria in the lake and its surrounding salt flats. Their work led the National Science Foundation to classify the lake as a "microbial observatory."

The trio recently discovered the bacterium Halomonas campisalis devours nitrates for nourishment, making it perfect for treating nitrate-bearing wastewater as well as water left over inthe production of explosives and fertilizers.

Normally, temperature changes in lake water cause them to turn over twice a year, allowing material like dead algae with all their nutrients to accumulate at the bottom of the lake. Soap Lake's shape and high bottom salt content prevent it from turning over, trapping those nutrients. The bottom section of the lake contains so much salt it's like syrup.

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UMR's love for green extends past St. Pat's.

Students from UMR, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Washington University and Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville will be on campus Oct. 6-7 to share their research at the 12th annual Mid-America Environmental Engineering Conference.

“The aim of the conference is to build relationships between the environmental engineering programs at the schools and to all our students -- mostly graduate -- to present their work in a relaxed but professional setting,” says Dr. Mark Fitch, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at UMR.

Read more here.

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One year after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, UMR civil engineer Jianmin Wang will present findings from research he conducted in the Big Easy to the American Chemical Society's National Meeting and Exposition Sept. 10-14 in San Francisco.

Wang and colleagues collected 238 soil and sediment samples one month after Katrina hit and analyzed them for pesticides and heavy metals. The pesticide levels were "generally not of great concern," but as many as 50 percent of the samples contained arsenic and 30 percent in their leachaets had lead equal to or above maximum level of those metals allowed in drinking water.

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As part of her annual Farm Tour, U.S. Representative Jo Ann Emerson (pictured) visited campus today to meet with a pair of UMR chemical engineers who've devised a way to make ethanol using things like corn stalks, rice hulls and various types of wood - like the leaves and branches typically left over by the forestry industry.

Missouri recently made the switch to E10 to replace straight gasoline. We'll need 13 billion gallons of ethanol per year to keep up with demand. If we go with E85, we'd need 123 billion gallons of the stuff. If 100 percent of the state's corn grain were used for ethanol production, it would only yield 30 billion gallons. Considering some of that grain also has to go to the food market for people and animals, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that an alternative fuel source is needed.

Enter Neil Book and Olliver Sitton.

Continue reading "Wood you use ethanol?" »

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Sometimes, despite what Kermit says, being green is too easy. At least that appears to be the case for the lake at Ber Juan Park in Rolla.

Three UMR graduate students recently collected water samples in order to determine what's causing green slime to cover the water. Their finding?

The lake is eutrophic. In essence, this means that the water is overly rich in mineral and organic nutrients, specifically phosphorus and nitrogen, that promote plant life and especially algae growth. ... “This is not a unique problem,” Joel Burken said. As long as the lake is getting excessive nutrients, said Burken, this sort of growth is a common, and even likely, thing to occur.

From the Rolla Daily News.

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The lush rainforests of Bolivia provide a picturesque educational setting for the 250 students studying at the Rio Colorado Technical Agricultural High School. But ironically, despite the campus's 400-acre, rainforest location, the school is struggling to provide enough water for its students, who stay in dormitories on campus and go home only on weekends.

That's why -- at a time when most college students are packing up to return to campus -- a team from UMR's Engineers Without Borders (EWB) chapter is heading to Bolivia next month. The UMR team’s goal is to gather enough information about the water supply and geology surrounding the campus so they can return next spring and develop a safe and sustainable water supply for the school.

This is the fourth project for the UMR EWB chapter, which was formed on campus in 2004.

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If global warming is a big problem, then it stands to reason that engineers should be the ones to fix it. A few days ago, we asked Visions readers if they had any big ideas for saving the planet. Well, UMR freshman Trevor McWilliams has some ideas about energy alternatives. A lot of ideas. It's nice to know that some college students still care about stuff like saving the world. Trevor's email follows. (Keep the dialogue going by emailing news at umr dot edu -- for now, that's our only way to receive comments.)

I attended Nuke Camp at Rolla several years ago and they presented a very nice option to current problems with the energy infrastructure. Can you guess? Yup, nuclear energy! Although nuke got a bad rep from the "disaster" at Three Mile Island and the much larger problem at Chernobyl, it has since become a key component to any long-term scenario presented by those advocates of green energy. It turns out CO2 emissions from nuke plants approach zero and they are considered safer to live next to than a similar coal-fired plant. Coal plants- in addition to the CO2- also put out trace amounts of arsenic, lead, mercury, and a few other nasties as well. Over a period of time that stuff collects. Now I wouldn't personally consider it a real threat (asteroids hitting me while I sleep concern me more...) but that goes to show you how safe nuclear energy is.

The guys who make nuke plants don't mess around. To them, triple-redundancy is the norm and safety factors are very large. Besides, Chernobyl could not happen here b/c we use reactors that are designed to shut down when they fail (Chernobyl had a problem where the reaction rate increased as temperature rose- our reactors are oppositely designed) and we use 3 foot concrete and steel containment buildings. Further more, we don't use flammable moderators :) Beyond this, our engineers (including those at Rolla!) are currently redesigning American reactors to a single design known as the Gen IV Reactor. In this system, reactors are built in a semi-modular form and all reactors would adhere to a standaradized safety and control system. Nuclear power is just waiting for a favorable public opinion and legislators who don't take money from the coal guys.

Now that takes care of the electricity market, but how about the automobile market? What needs to happen is to connect the automotive fuel market to the commerical electrical grid. This IS debatable, but I'll give you one good (though well used) exaample. Hydrogen cars. Now, I know that there are more advanced projects in the works, and hydrogen gets a lot of crap, but it is a source that can work. The biggest problem is currently how to store the hydrogen safely, and that is not a killer problem. I recently read about new tanks that use an adsorbtion process to physically constrain hyperactive H atoms to the surface of an extremely porous material. When you need it, simply heat the tank up a little. And this process means that the tank is not under pressure and can contain a vast amount of hydrogen versus a gaseous form. (I would like to note that this isn't perfect- it takes a long time to fill the tank, currently. But hey, that's why ENGINEERS ARE NEEDED TO SAVE THE PLANET!)

The rest of Trevor's email is after the jump....

Continue reading "Saving the world (Trevor's take)" »

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The Adsorption Specialist Group of the International Water Association has a new chair this month.

Craig Adams is taking on the new responsibilities, coordinating the activities of international experts that use advanced water treatment technologies to purify drinking water wordwide.

“There are tremendous pressures across the globe, including in the United States, in providing safe drinking water to the public," Adams says. “Adsorption technologies such as activated carbon, synthetic resins, and natural adsorbents need to play an increasingly important role in taking toxic compounds out of drinking water."

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She's just like the Crocodile Hunter, but with frogs.

Anne Maglia, assistant professor of biological sciences at UMR, studies the tiny amphibians -- specifically the decline in their populations and the malformations that show up in frog development. She recently shared her knowledge on midwestfrogs.com, an online documentary sponsored by the Chicago Herpetological Society.

Maglia hopes to learn how contaminants in the water supply -- from pesticide residue to lead mines -- effects this creature she likens to the "canary in the coal mine." If the junk in the water causes problems in the frogs, it won't be long before it becomes a problem for you and me.

Continue reading "Crikey!" »

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UMR recently added Tongji University in China to its growing list of college and university partnerships.

The agreement with Tongji University, which was founded in 1908 in the People’s Republic of China, focuses on graduate student exchange and faculty collaboration in the environmental discipline. UMR officials anticipate the five-year agreement will increase the university’s visibility in China, improving its ability to attract excellent students to pursue advanced degrees and enhancing its research productivity.

Read highlights of the agreement here.

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Sometimes, despite what Kermit says, it is easy to be green.

Just ask Leonor Valdez-Sanchez, the state’s first environmental engineering graduate. Four months ago, Valdez-Sanchez graduated with a bachelor of science degree in environmental engineering from UMR, home to Missouri’s first environmental engineering undergraduate degree program.

“What I loved about the UMR program was the variety of the different courses and emphasis areas you can chose from," she says. “We are not just engineers trying to develop solutions to protect the environment, we also develop solutions that can benefit society and protect us all."

Continue reading "'Green' degree pays off" »

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Some might consider UMR junior Ryan Sitzes to be a true friend of the water flea.

The Jackson, Mo.-native competed April 7-8 in a WERC design competition, taking on the challenge of removing tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) -- a chemical used in lithography -- from concentrated streams in the semi-conductor industries.

After use, TMAH is discharged to sanitary sewers. Although very little toxicity information exists at the present time, TMAH, which is soluble and dissolves rapidly in water, has been shown to be potentially toxic to ceriodaphnia dubia, commonly known as the “water flea."

Sitzes recieved a Judge's Choice award for his work, competing against teams from Hungary, Canada, Mexico and the United States.

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UMR is one of the first universities in the country to have an HPLC-ICP-MS system for metal speciation studies. Despite its alphabet-soup name, the cool set-up is so sensitive it can detect toxic species at ultratrace levels. UMR's Jianmin Wang and his students are using the technology in their effort to understand how heavy metals -- think arsenic, lead and mercury -- can leach from fly ash. Read more about their work here.

Dying to know what HPLC-IPC-MS stands for? If you must know, high performance liquid chromatography (that's the HPLC part), linked to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (IPC-MS). Still need more details? Go here.

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Gov. Matt Blunt is proposing a state-imposed rule that all gasoline sold in Missouri contain at least 10 percent ethanol. If his plan is approved, Missouri would become the fourth state to adopt such a requirement.

KY3, the NBC affiliate in Springfield, Mo., recently turned to UMR's own Virgil Flanigan to help dispell some of the myths associated with ethanol blends. Flanigan, a three-time UMR graduate, is professor emeritus of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UMR and director of the Center for Environmental Science and Technology. A specialist in alternative energy studies, Flanigan is currently studying how biodiesels could help the U.S. Amy improve fuel consumption in Hummer vehicles.

Watch KY3's report here. (Thanks to Jerry Jacob for the link).

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Forget playlists and think potential pollution.

iPods, cell phones and other electronic products often contain toxic materials, a growing environmental threat as Americans throw away roughly two million electronic products each year. According to Reuters, California Assembly Member Lori Saldana from San Diego has introduced a bill that would require manufacturers to stop using hazardous substances in electronic devices sold in California within two years.

It's not exactly a new idea. Three years ago, UMR's own Venkata Allada was talking about the idea of industrial ecology with Visions and sharing how companies should design products that can be easily disassembled for reuse, recycling or servicing once they reach “end-of-life usefulness."

The idea seems to be catching on. Starting this July, the European Union’s Restriction on Hazardous Substances Directive will make “lead free" a requirement for EU member countries and for those wanting to sell electrical and electronic equipment in the EU.

According to a 2000 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report, only about 9 percent of discarded electronic material is recycled or reclaimed for reuse in manufacturing; the rest contributes to the lead, cadmium and mercury contamination in the nation’s soils.

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The tragic coal mining accidents in West Virginia last month have prompted the mining industry and federal government to take a new look at what role regulations and new technologies could play in reducing the risks of another underground mining disaster. And UMR professor Larry Grayson, chair of UMR's mining and nuclear engineering department, is leading one effort.

Last month, Grayson was picked to lead an independent commission to improve mine safety and prevent tragedies such as those at the Sago and Melville mines in West Virginia. As Grayson points out in this recent National Geographic story, technology -- from robotics to virtual reality training -- could be the key to reducing the risk of future mining accidents.

Continue reading "Robotic canaries in the coal mine" »

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Umit Koylu is serious about soot.

For the past five years Koylu, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UMR, and his students have been investigating how the microscopic particles form during combustion.

Continue reading "Eye on Research -- Clearing the air" »

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That’s a phrase roughly 200,000 homes in St. Louis might as well have hanging in a cross-stitched frame on their living room wall, according to a UMR researcher.

Continue reading "Eye on Research -- Home, sweet (and toxic) home" »

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A fly makes its way across the coast of North Carolina and brushes against a plant when – snap! – the plant’s “jaws" quickly shut, trapping the insect inside.

Continue reading "Kidz View -- Planting seeds of science" »

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When Pedro Dimitriu, an Argentinian graduate student at UMR, receives his master’s in biological sciences this summer, he’ll have more than just a degree. He’ll have the discovery of a new species under his belt.

Continue reading "Student View -- Pedro Dimitriu" »

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While the words “human-powered vehicle" may conjure up images of Fred Flintstone’s prehistoric family car, UMR’s torpedo-shaped ride looks more like it should belong to George Jetson.

Continue reading "Team Watch -- Peddling pedal power" »

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What do a lake in Washington state and the planet Mars have in common? That’s what UMR biologist Melanie Mormile is trying to find out.

Continue reading "Faculty View -- Melanie Mormile" »

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An alum with a green thumb

Chester Baker, a 1955 MSM-UMR civil engineering graduate, recently donated $100,000 to UMR to fund a greenhouse for environmental research. The greenhouse, to be constructed this spring, will be located on the roof of the newly renovated Butler-Carlton Civil Engineering Building. Baker’s donation was used as matching funds in a proposal to the National Science Foundation, which was funded for $800,000. In addition to environmental engineering research, students and faculty members in the biological sciences and geology departments will study plant physiology, botany and environmental issues in the new lab.

Continue reading "A Quick Look -- Environment" »

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When you think of frog deformities, you picture a frog with extra limbs, right? Like those of the six-legged, three-headed frog found in an English nursery school yard in March, extra-limb deformities are the most common type seen by the average person because that is a deformity a frog can live with, says UMR biologist Anne Maglia.

Continue reading "Eye on Research -- 'Frog' on to this new anatomy website" »

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There’s a lot of “trash talking" going on around campus these days as UMR gets ready for the Third Annual Rolla Earth Day Celebration, set for Thursday, April 22. The all-day event will begin at 11 a.m. on the UMR campus and continue into the evening at the Rolla Downtown Band Shell.

Continue reading "Kidz View -- Trash bash comes to campus" »

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Over the next few years, UMR researcher Joel Burken will be closely watching some 850 trees he and his students planted at an old strip coal mine in Barton County, Mo. Various hybrid and native trees – such as poplars, native pecan, willows and pin oaks – were planted to stabilize soils, use up excess water and clean the environment.

Continue reading "A Quick Look -- Trees: Filtering out pollution" »

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These days, the cell phone – persistent as it is – doesn’t always ring twice. Comprising a good chunk of the two million electronic products Americans throw away each year, the cell phone resonates with its own extinction. But University of Missouri-Rolla researcher Venkata Allada hopes to change that. Allada is working to give cell phones, computers and other electronic products a second, third, or even fourth life.

Continue reading "Eye on Research -- Industry ecology: Designing with the future in mind" »

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Ten UMR geological engineering students journeyed to Guatemala for their 2003 spring break – not to bask on the beach but to bring safe drinking water to a tiny highlands village. And the team's project, a continuation of a UMR student's research in 2002, was, in more than one sense, truly groundbreaking.

Continue reading "Team Watch -- Supplying water, saving lives" »

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Most of us fill a glass from our faucet without thinking much about it. But for residents of Saunders County, Neb., drinking water is a daily concern because of contamination from a former munitions production site in the county. Curt Elmore, a UMR assistant professor of geological engineering, hopes to help Saunders County residents breathe – and drink – a bit easier.

Continue reading "Faculty View -- Battling pollution, one Superfund site at a time" »