From left to right, the WERC team: Hagen Childers (left), Emily McCarty (right), Rafik Baitamouni (right), Mason Link (right), Richard Danylo (right), and Richard Danylo
Six students in chemical engineering collaborated and solved innovative problems to win first place at the 32-day competition.ndWERC Environmental Design Contest Las Cruces (N.M.
Rafik Bafik, Hagen Childers and Richard Danylo along with Rachel Hampp and Mason Link, were tasked to find a solution for removing volatile organic compounds (or VOCs), from contaminated waters that had been contaminated by oil and gas industries. VOCs are gases that are emitted from these processes into the air. They are often harmful to environment and can even cause cancer.
Currently, the oil-and-gas industries recycle water from their fracking process. The VOCs from this recycled water are released into the environment by being kept in open-air impoundments. Childers stated that monitoring devices in New Mexico recently showed an increase in VOC levels at oil and gas sites. This must be reduced.
VOCs must first be removed from the water supply in order to comply with environmental regulations. McCarty stated that this will keep the community safe and conserve water every year. The group must also provide an analysis of the economic costs involved in implementing their solution.
The competition provides a great opportunity for the team to work with open-ended design problems and solve difficult problems. Darin Ridgway (associate professor and chair of Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering) said that it was a highlight for many graduates.
The OHIO team devised an adsorption method that utilized granular activated Carbon (GAC) to solve the problem. The GAC is used to adsorb VOCs to the porous surface. The GAC can be recycled, making this solution both cost-effective and environmentally sustainable.
Childers stated that the team found this to be the best solution after conducting many beaker testing in our lab.
Their solution was successful and they were awarded first place in their task. However, the path to success was not always easy. In the beginning stages of preparing for the competition the team struggled with communication. They quickly realized that the problem they had to solve was related to civil engineering, so they formed a group of chemical engineers students and adapted to the interdisciplinarity of the challenge. They began to build trust and balance between their diverse leadership styles and skills as they went through the semester.
This experience has taught me lifelong friendships and skills. Childers said that although there was initially a lack in communication and trust issues among the group, it became more cohesive over time and we became great friends.
They were able to present their solution at the WERC Environmental Design contest at New Mexico State University as the culmination of their efforts. The judging panel expressed concerns about their design when they presented it at the competition. The group accepted the feedback and tried to adapt their design if necessary.
It is important to have someone with real-world experience in engineering guide you. McCarty said that sometimes mistakes are a good thing as you can learn from them.
The competition allowed team members to improve their chemical engineering skills by working together to solve a real-world problem. They were able to improve their leadership and communication skills by gaining practical experience.
The lack of hands-on learning has been a problem in navigating COVID these past two years. I thought that I would be an engineer student. However, my college experience so far has been very different. McCarty stated that this opportunity helped me rekindle my passion for engineering, and enabled me to be a more prominent member of Russ College.
