HAZARDOUS WASTE PROCESSING in the Chemical Engineering Curriculum

(.3.... 5 1111113._c_u_r_r_i_c_u_l_u_m__________ ) HAZARDOUS WASTE PROCESSING In the Chemical Engineering Curriculum DIANNE DORLAND, DoRAB N. BARIA University of Minnesota, Duluth • Duluth, MN 55812 s our nation's tolerance for pollution in general has decreased, the use of chemical engineering skills in Dianne Dorland is Associate Professor of chemi waste management has steadily increased. This is cal engineering at University of Minnesota, Duluth. A She received her BS and MS from the South Da particularly true where pollution prevention at the source has kota School of Mines and Technology and her PhD been emphasized over "end of the pipe" treatment. Second from the West Virginia University (1985). She cur rently teaches the Hazardous Waste Processing ary wastewater treatment will continue to be the principal Engineering course sequence for chemical engi public health shield for our sewer discharges, but tertiary neers, and her research interests include industrial wastewater treatment is frequently mandated for an indus wastewater treatment and hazardous waste man agement. trial facility and is becoming more common for wastewater treatment in publicly owned treatment works (POTWs). Dorab N. Baria is Professor of chemical engi neering at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. He Wastewater treatment, or sanitary engineering, has tradi received his PhD in chemical engineering from tionally been part of civil engineering, and more recently of Northwestem Universtiy in 1971. He subsequently worked for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission the relatively new field of environmental engineering. Sani at the Ames Laboratory, Iowa State University, as tary engineers have satisfactorily designed and operated a research fellow for fifteen months and then was a chemical engineering faculty member at the wastewater and sewage treatment plants without ever having University of North Dakota until 1985, when he taken courses in chemical kinetics and reactor design, chemi joined the UMD faculty. cal thermodynamics, or unit operations. Most of these plants were, basically, primary treatment facilities, with some of them including secondary treatment. The fact that most of All this activity has given rise to the field of environmental the facilities did not face major problems was because sani engineering, which is now replacing sanitary engineering in tary engineers had acquired, and could draw on, a large body many civil engineering programs. According to the state of empirical information on wastewater treatment and plant ment of purpose published by the Environmental Engineer operation. Efficient operation and the use of advanced or ing Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers,[ll tertiary wastewater treatment were not prime considerations. environmental engineering deals with solutions of problems of environmental sanitation, notably the provision of safe, Due to the growing consciousness of hazardous wastes palatable, and ample public water supplies; proper disposal and incidents such as Love Canal and Times Beach, the or recycling of wastewater and solid wastes; adequate drain public has .demanded that federal, state, and local govern age of urban and rural areas for proper sanitation; control of ments get involved in the control and management of haz atmospheric, water, and soil pollution; and the social and ardous substances and wastes. This demand has led to for environmental impacts of these solutions. It is also con mation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as cerned with engineering problems in the field of public well as the Clean Air Acts, the Clean Water Acts, the health, such as control of arthropod-borne diseases, elimina Toxic Substances Control Act, the Resource Conservation tion of industrial health hazards, provision of adequate sani and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Comprehensive Environ tation in urban, rural, and recreational areas, and the effect of mental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act technological advances on the environment. (CERCLA), and the Superfund Amendments and Reauthori zation Act (SARA). The above areas that come under the working umbrella of chemical engineering include the proper disposal or recy- © Copyright ChE Division of ASEE 1995 178 Chemical Engineering Education cling of wastewater and solid wastes, and the control of including a final , and homework counts twenty-five percent. atmospheric, water, and soil pollution. A common method The remaining twenty-five percent of the grade is for a of disposal is incineration. Design and operation of efficient written report on an engineering design of a system handling incinerators that meet federal standards require a knowledge hazardous wastes, individually produced by each student. of chemical thermodynamics, kinetics, and stoichiometry, Several texts and references have been used for this course, while control of pollution uses the principles including Davis and Cornwell,(1 1 Allen, learned in mass transfer operations, filtra- et al.Y 1 Dawson and Mercer,131 4 tion, sedimentation, chemical reactions, Eckenfelder, C l Peavy, Rowe, and chemical thermodynamics, and kinetics and Because of the Tchobanoglous,CS1 Tavlarides ,c61 Wark and reactor design. A thorough knowledge of strong influences Warner,l71 and Wentz_csi Because of the broad organic chemistry and stoichiometry is re subject area, no one text has proven entirely quired for solving most problems dealing of transport phe- satisfactory, and a large component of the with environmental engineering. nomena and eco- teaching material is excerpted from recent . Hazardous substances and wastes, as de nomics in air journals such as Chemical Engineering, En fined by various federal and state statutes, vironmental Engineering, Waste Manage are produced by most chemical industries. pollution preven ment, Environmental Progress, Combustion In many instances they can be modified into tion and control, Science Technology, and Chemical Engi nonhazardous substances, or destroyed by the chemical engi neering Progress. Materials dealing with chemical means, but newer methods of pol state regulations, available from the Minne lution control and safe disposal of wastes neer is singularly sota Pollution Control Agency, are also fre must be developed; more importantly, newer equipped to design quently used. Course content is continually processing methods that will not produce developing in response to current legisla hazardous wastes need to be developed. In and implement air tion and technological progress. order to do this, a thorough understanding pollution control Protecting and improving the environment of the thermodynamics and kinetics of systems. are now recognized imperatives for sound chemical processes is needed. Chemical en management. Chemical engineers will face gineers are best equipped to design and op- important challenges in the future: design erate equipment or systems for the proper disposal and recy ing inherently safer and less polluting plants and processes, cling of wastewater and solid wastes and to make process improving air and water quality, and managing hazardous modifications to avoid production of hazardous wastes. wastes responsibly. These challenges have important impli It was with these insights that the chemical engineering cations for chemical engineering education, which is the program at the University of Minnesota, Duluth (UMD) reason this course was developed. decided to include in its ABET-accredited curriculum a se quence of two courses that deal with processing of hazard COURSE CONTENT ous wastes. Increasing numbers of our graduates are now The first topic covered is the definition of pollution, gener finding places as chemical engineers with environmental or ating lively discussion as the legislative, industrial, personal, waste management responsibilities. and aesthetic viewpoints are presented. Throughout the course, an attempt is made to maintain this parallel perspec COURSE STRUCTURE tive of what is ethical and what is defined by law. Presenting Hazardous Waste Processing Engineering I-II is a sequence the history of federal regulations and the current status of of two 4-credit courses taught in the winter and spring quar key legislation leads into the global issues of acid rain, ters of the junior year. The class meets thirty times a quarter greenhouse effect, and ozone depletion problems. for sixty-five minutes per lecture. Prerequisites include a The next major topic is air pollution, starting with a defini year of organic chemistry and a year of engineering physics, tion of air pollutants, their origins and effects, and the differ with physical chemistry as a corequisite. Chemical engineer ence between primary and secondary air pollutants. Meteo ing majors have also completed stoichiometry and fluid me rological effects, particularly atmospheric stability and plume chanics, and concurrently take mass transfer, chemical ther behavior, are reviewed before introducing basic concepts of modynamics, and kinetics (in physical chemistry). dispersion modeling. EPA-approved dispersion models are The overall goals of the courses are to identify hazardous downloaded from the Internet and used by the students. substances and their effects, study federal and state regula While models of varying levels of complexity are available tions, design waste treatment processes to meet effluent from this source, the easiest EPA model to use is the standards, and to understand the management of hazardous SCREEN2

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