Gregory V. Lowry

Walter J. Blenko, Sr. Professor

  • Welcome
  • Research
    • Environmental Chemistry
    • Remediation
    • Energy and Environment
    • Past Projects
  • People
    • Past Researchers
  • Courses
    • Advanced Issues in Environmental Nanotechnology
    • Environmental Engineering / Lab
    • Characterizing and Analyzing Environmental Samples and Systems
    • Physicochemical Processes and Organic Compounds in Aquatic Systems
  • Publications
    • Journal Articles
    • Conferences, Proceedings and Abstracts
    • Invited Seminars and Talks
    • Book Chapters and Other Publications

Course Number: 12-725

Primary Audience: M.S. and Ph.D. students in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Chemical Engineering.

Secondary Audience: Graduate students in other Engineering Disciplines, advanced undergraduates in Chemical or Civil and Environmental Engineering upon approval of the instructor.

Course Objectives

  • To understand the factors governing the behavior of hazardous organic chemicals in the environment: distribution among air, water, and soil; surface water transport and subsurface transport; transformations.
  • To understand how a chemical’s properties and equilibrium and rate principles affect the distribution of pollutants in the environment.
  • Become familiar with chemical property estimation methods.
  • To derive and use equilibrium and kinetic models for determining the ultimate fate of organic pollutants in the environment. 

 

 

Prerequisites:  12-655 Water Quality Engineering or equivalent, or by consent of instructor
Grading:  30% Homework, 30% Midterm, 40% Final Exam

Major Topics
(Note:  Not all topics are addressed each semester)

  • Physical and Chemical Properties of Organic Pollutants
  • Equilibrium Partitioning and Equilibrium Partitioning Models
    • Air-Water partitioning-hydrophobicity, solubility, Henry’s Constant
    • Water-Solid and Biota-Water Partitioning-Kow, BCF
  • Interphase Mass Transfer
    • Gas-liquid mass transfer
    • Controlling resistance
  • Contaminant Reactions and Oxygen Demand
    • Contaminant degradability and persistance
    • First-order decay processes
    • Biological transformations
  • Reactor Theory
    • CSTR vs. PFR
    • Response to steady and pulse inputs
  • BOD Loading and Oxygen DemandChemical Fate in Municipal Waste Treatment
    • Degradable waste in streams
    • Streeter-Phelps and oxygen sag
    • Contaminant removal processes; sorption, volatilization, biodegradation
  • Mixing and Dispersion
    • Transport equation
    • Problem solving for step and pulse inputs
  • Groundwater Flow and Subsurface Contaminant Transport
    • Darcy’s Law
    • Permeability and hydraulic conductivity
    • 1-D transport with sorbing contaminants
    • Retardation and effects of clean-up strategies

 

Papers

Levard, C., Mitral, S., Yang, T., Jew, A., Badireddy, R., Lowry, G., Brown, Jr., G. E. (2013) The Effect of Chloride on the Dissolution Rate of Silver Nanoparticles and Toxicity to E. coli. Environ. Sci. Technol. 47 (11), 5738–5745. DOI:10.1021/es400396f.

Sun, M., Lowry, G., Gregory, K. (2013). Selective oxidation of bromide in brines from hydraulic fracturing sites. Water Research 47 (11), 3723–3731. DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2013.04.041.

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Contact Information

Carnegie Mellon University
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering

119 Porter Hall
5000 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA,
15213

E-mail: glowry@cmu.edu
Phone: (412) 268-2948
Fax: (412) 268-7813

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© Greg Lowry, 2015, all rights researved