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Facilities in Environmental Engineering
The Environmental Engineering Program has several well-equipped laboratories spanning over 5000 sq. ft. of floor space and accessible to students participating in the program. The major research projects in these laboratories are:
- Environmental Engineering Microbiology
- Environmental Transport Phenomena (Colloidal and Microbial Transport)
- Water Quality and Chemistry
- Membrane Separations in Aquatic Systems
State-of-the-art instruments housed in these laboratories are utilized for faculty research projects, graduate student training, and undergraduate education.
Major Research Equipment
- Digital Instruments Nanoscope III Multimode Scanning Probe Microscope with an assortment of tips and accessories for wet and dry scanning. The atomic force microscope is equipped with a high magnification top view optical microscope for accurate tip positioning and monitoring.
- Zeiss Axioplan II optical microscope with software for image analysis, CCD camera, analog to digital converter for rapid dynamic image acquisition (upto 30fps). An assortment of bright and dark field objectives for viewing very small (submicrometer) colloidal particles, biological samples, and surfaces.
- Barnstead-Thermolyne ROPure and Nanopure UV/UF water treatment system for production of deionized water.
- Total Internal Reflection Microscope
- Brookhaven Instruments' Zeta PALS light scattering and electrophoretic mobility measurement system.
- Brookhaven Instruments electrokinetic apparatus (BI-EKA) for streaming potential measurements. This instrument comes with two types of measuring cells which enable characterization of granular samples and flat surfaces.
- Time resolved simultaneous static and dynamic light scattering (SSDLS) equipment comprising an eight channel ALV Goniometer, a 647 nm laser source (Coherent Optics), and data acquisition and analysis software for fast multiangle light scattering studies. This equipment is housed in a separate cleanroom facility.
- Rectangular channel crossflow membrane filtration units (SEPA). Stirred batch cells (Millipore). Some indigenously designed crossflow filtration apparatus. Most of the membrane filtration equipment has an automated data acquisition system for simultaneous monitoring of permeate flux and pressure. The data acquisition is performed using digital flow meters and pressure sensors connected to a PC workstation.
- Fluoromax-3 Spectrofluorometer for measuring the fluorescent spectra of a sample. This instrument is completely computer controlled with a number of data acquisition modes including excitation/emission scans, time-based scans, batch scanning, and more. Flow-through cells allow for inline data acquisition of flowing solutions/suspensions.
- HP8453 UV-Vis spectrophotometer with accompanying analytical software for kinetic studies.
- A Varian 2200 gas chromatography ion trap tandem mass spectrometer system with chemical ionization capabilities for trace chemical analysis.
- A Cary 50 UV/Visible spectrophotometer with a xenon flash bulb light source.
- Several networked PC workstations (usually one PC per graduate/undergraduate student undertaking faculty advised research projects) with relevant software for modeling studies (Mathematica, Mathcad, an assortment of compilers, program libraries, versions of groundwater transport modeling software like MODFLOW, MOC3D, etc.).
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