Environmental Studies

Pollution prevention is a key concept that motivates much of the environmental studies in the Department.

Professor Overcash continues to develop methodologies for making environmentally conscious manufacturing process improvements. Professor Grant's research activities focus on understanding interfacial and transport phenomena in fouling and cleaning processes, including development of environmentally benign alternatives to solvent-based cleaning. Her recent activity in tribology includes tribochemical and tribomechanical properties of advanced lubricant systems in extreme environments. Professor Roberts has active research in the synthesis, characterization, and testing of novel heterogeneous catalysts for environmentally benign chemical synthesis and for minimizing partial oxidation products from automotive catalytic converters. He also studies supercritical CO2 as a medium for polymerization in order to reduce the production of aqueous and organic wastes.

Research involving environmental remediation and waste treatment is also ongoing. Professor Ollis is investigating photocatalysis in a variety of applications, including purification and deodorization of air, decontamination and disinfection of water, recovery of complexed metals from water, and combined chemical and biological oxidation for efficient remediation of recalcitrant compounds. Professor Peretti continues to work on a VOC biotreatment process that couples vapor/liquid extraction with membrane-supported biodegradation of mixtures of aromatics and aliphatics.