Civil and Environmental Engineering website | Activities | EEI Affiliates | EC

Faculty in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department are heavily involved in Environmental Research in the general areas of water treatment technology, field and laboratory scale remediation of industrial contamination, point and non-point source pollution analysis, water resource systems modeling  and management, surface and groundwater studies, environmental safety, risk analysis and environmental fluid mechanics.  A few projects are highlighted below.

Researchers in Dr. Dempsey's laboratory are sampling streams that are affected by acid mine drainage. This is the first step in the eventual remediation of the sources of pollution from old mining activities. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has thousands of stream-miles that are out of compliance with water quality regulations due to mine drainage.  

Researchers in Dr. Logan 's laboratory are using an atomic force microscope (AFM) mounted on an inverted microscope stage to study bacterial adhesion.  This instrument allows simultaneous optical and AFM viewing of a sample mounted on a transparent material such as a glass slide.  See the CRAEMS and BRIE Team 2 projects for more information.

Research areas include:

• Bioremediation of soil, sediment, groundwater
• Role of iron reducing bacteria on metals and radionuclides
• Toxicity of ionizable organic contaminants in estuarine sediments.
• Researching pollutant and odorant removal from water and air
• Pollution prevention in foundries
• Tailoring of activated carbons for cleaning water and air.
• Aquatic chemistry with an emphasis on solid-liquid interfacial phenomena (adsorption, treatment of acid mine drainage, coagulation in water & redox and precipitation processes).
• Stochastic and numerical modeling of groundwater flow and solute transport
• Modeling large-scale hydrologic systems and space-time dynamical environmental models
• Stratified flows turbulent mixing, coastal processes and wave mechanics.
• Restoration of stream stability and habitat, sediment transport and sediment reduction through erosion mitigation.
• Environmental and chemical transport processes
• Biological wastewater treatment
• Fractal analysis of particles and coagulation processes
• Colloid transport in porous media
• Using atomic force microscopy to probe bacterial adhesion.
• Surface water quality modeling
• Gas transfer through soil
• Chromium (VI) emissions from industrial sources
• Eco-houses and green leases.
• Environmental pollution control; solid and hazardous waste management; beneficial use of industry residuals
• Microbiology   of wastewater treatment and polluted water
• Acidic mine drainage
• Water microbiology   and microbial
• Finite element modeling of coupled hydrolic, geochemical and biological systems