Removal and Reuse of Phosphorus as a Fertilizer from CAFO Runoff

Eutrophication is the process in which nutrient saturated waters promote algal blooms on the surface of the water. This limits the amount of dissolved oxygen content in the water, effectively limiting the range of species that can survive in a body of water. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) can contribute to this issue. The animals in a CAFO produce large amounts of nutrient-rich waste streams that can enter natural waterways if not properly managed and increase the problem of eutrophication. The ability to treat these waste streams and recover the excess nutrients would allow for not only the reduction of nutrient leaching and runoff but would help create sustainable phosphorus practice. Phosphorus is vital in terms of food production, and there is no replacement for phosphorus for plants or humans. As the population continues to increase, food demand will as well. This means that at any point that phosphorus can be recovered, it should be. To recover phosphorus effectively from waste water sources, reverse osmosis, anion exchange, or adsorption are all viable options. Woo Pig Pooie researched these options for recovering phosphorus, and adsorption was found to be the most promising from standpoints of low maintenance and cost effectiveness. Multiple adsorption materials were ranked based on appropriate performance of cost, particle size, adsorption qualities, and the effects of application of the material. Water treatment residuals, WTR (i.e. spent alum from a drinking water treatment plant), was determined to be the most effective adsorbent. WTR, a waste product, is 80% water as it exits the water treatment plant. It must be pelletized and dried before use as an adsorbent. Pelletized and dried WTR was utilized in a full-scale facility treating 62 GPM of feed using two 11,000 gallons packed columns with associated equipment. If the cost of pelletizing and drying the WTR is included, an alternative strategy for implementation on individual farms is for several farmers to form a cooperative, which would allow the minimization of the $1,460,000 fixed capital cost and the$504,000 cost of manufacturing of the drying pelletizing facility. This would allow for the maximum amount of WTR to be treated increasing the revenue of the operation to $731,500. The cooperative would have an operation of 10 years with a net present value of$5,000. Experimental results using WTR packed columns have shown non-detectable levels of phosphorus in the effluent. The produced phosphorus saturated WTR could be land applied to reduce the level of nutrients in runoff from fields, making a safer agriculture operation

Removal and Reuse of Phosphorus as a Fertilizer from CAFO Runoff

Eutrophication is the process in which nutrient saturated waters promote algal blooms on the surface of the water. This limits the amount of dissolved oxygen content in the water, effectively limiting the range of species that can survive in a body of water. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) can contribute to this issue. The animals in a CAFO produce large amounts of nutrient-rich waste streams that can enter natural waterways if not properly managed and increase the problem of eutrophication. The ability to treat these waste streams and recover the excess nutrients would allow for not only the reduction of nutrient leaching and runoff but would help create sustainable phosphorus practice. Phosphorus is vital in terms of food production, and there is no replacement for phosphorus for plants or humans. As the population continues to increase, food demand will as well. This means that at any point that phosphorus can be recovered, it should be. To recover phosphorus effectively from waste water sources, reverse osmosis, anion exchange, or adsorption are all viable options. Woo Pig Pooie researched these options for recovering phosphorus, and adsorption was found to be the most promising from standpoints of low maintenance and cost effectiveness. Multiple adsorption materials were ranked based on appropriate performance of cost, particle size, adsorption qualities, and the effects of application of the material. Water treatment residuals, WTR (i.e. spent alum from a drinking water treatment plant), was determined to be the most effective adsorbent. WTR, a waste product, is 80% water as it exits the water treatment plant. It must be pelletized and dried before use as an adsorbent. Pelletized and dried WTR was utilized in a full-scale facility treating 62 GPM of feed using two 11,000 gallons packed columns with associated equipment. If the cost of pelletizing and drying the WTR is included, an alternative strategy for implementation on individual farms is for several farmers to form a cooperative, which would allow the minimization of the $1,460,000 fixed capital cost and the$504,000 cost of manufacturing of the drying pelletizing facility. This would allow for the maximum amount of WTR to be treated increasing the revenue of the operation to $731,500. The cooperative would have an operation of 10 years with a net present value of$5,000. Experimental results using WTR packed columns have shown non-detectable levels of phosphorus in the effluent. The produced phosphorus saturated WTR could be land applied to reduce the level of nutrients in runoff from fields, making a safer agriculture operation

Insights Into Global Engineering Education After the Birth of Industry 5.0

Insights Into Global Engineering Education After the Birth of Industry 5.0 presents a comprehensive overview of recent developments in the fields of engineering and technology. The book comprises single chapters authored by various researchers and edited by an expert active in the engineering education research area. It provides a thorough overview of the latest research efforts by international authors on engineering education and opens potential new research paths for further novel developments

On the engineering of crucial software

The various aspects of the conventional software development cycle are examined. This cycle was the basis of the augmented approach contained in the original grant proposal. This cycle was found inadequate for crucial software development, and the justification for this opinion is presented. Several possible enhancements to the conventional software cycle are discussed. Software fault tolerance, a possible enhancement of major importance, is discussed separately. Formal verification using mathematical proof is considered. Automatic programming is a radical alternative to the conventional cycle and is discussed. Recommendations for a comprehensive approach are presented, and various experiments which could be conducted in AIRLAB are described

Doing pedagogical research in engineering

This is a book

Learning evolution through socioscientific issues

No abstract available.publishe

Early Childhood Science Education: Research Trends in Learning and Teaching

This volume consists of a collection of articles that touch on very different research aspects within a broad scientific field known in recent years as Early Childhood Science Education. The field has gradually emerged from the interaction between three distinct scientific areas of theory and research: Early Childhood Education, Psychology, which is oriented towards the study of learning, and Science Education. At the center of the progress in this field are efforts to initiate children aged 4-8 years in the Physical and Biological Sciences. A wide range of research themes have developed around this main axis: children's mental representations of phenomena of the natural world and scientific concepts, the study of the implementation and effectiveness of specific teaching activities related to curricula or activities focusing on the specific characteristics of teaching processes such as reasoning, explanation, communication, interaction or argumentation, the issue of teachers' relevance to the teaching of science, the use of pecialized teaching materials, the emergence of the issue of scientific skills, the highly contemporary issue of the differentiation and inclusion of children in the world of science, important socio-scientific issues, the role of family-related factors etc. Within this context, this collective book aims to reflect contemporary research trends in the field of Early Childhood Science Education

Challenges for engineering students working with authentic complex problems

Engineers are important participants in solving societal, environmental and technical problems. However, due to an increasing complexity in relation to these problems new interdisciplinary competences are needed in engineering. Instead of students working with monodisciplinary problems, a situation where students work with authentic complex problems in interdisciplinary teams together with a company may scaffold development of new competences. The question is: What are the challenges for students structuring the work on authentic interdisciplinary problems? This study explores a three-day event where 7 students from Aalborg University (AAU) from four different faculties and one student from University College North Denmark (UCN), (6th-10th semester), worked in two groups at a large Danish company, solving authentic complex problems. The event was structured as a Hackathon where the students for three days worked with problem identification, problem analysis and finalizing with a pitch competition presenting their findings. During the event the students had workshops to support the work and they had the opportunity to use employees from the company as facilitators. It was an extracurricular activity during the summer holiday season. The methodology used for data collection was qualitative both in terms of observations and participants’ reflection reports. The students were observed during the whole event. Findings from this part of a larger study indicated, that students experience inability to transfer and transform project competences from their previous disciplinary experiences to an interdisciplinary setting