2017 Environmental Engineering Design Team - Montana Tech
Congratulations Montana Tech!
Two Montana Tech teams traveled to Las Cruses this year for the WERC International Design Team Competition in New Mexico. Task 3 took Second Place and a team leader from Task 2 won the Terry McManus award.
The ‘Dust Diggers’ team placed Second in Task 3, Tailings Dust Emissions and brought home a trophy. The team developed a holistic strategy to mitigate fugitive dust emissions from a tailing storage facility. Specifically, the team proposed a combination use of meteorological and wind erosion models to predict dust events, designed an application system to apply a novel dust binder on the top of the tailings, and fabricated a miniature wind tunnel called Tech-PIWE for field evaluation of dust suppression performance. In addition, the team also performed economic analysis of their mitigation strategy and discussed relevant permits and regulations. Team members included Jesse Bryant, Ryan Cochran, Abby Indreland, Ian Muller, and Kolby Sukut (above). Xufei Yang was their advisor.
The second team brought a unique environmental design solution for Task 2, Passive Solar Distillation of ARD Waters. This team—Seth Garrity, Marcus Holland, Alison Lunde, and Hannah Ruble (below)—built a membrane distillation system that treated acid rock drainage, ARD, using solar energy. The team 3D printed a membrane module, built a precipitation unit to remove iron compounds that cause membrane clogging, and constructed a solar collector that captured heat from the sun. Team leader, Marcus Holland, won the Terry McManus award for his commitment to environmental excellence and passion for global environmental issues. Katherine Zodrow and Kumar Ganesan were their advisors.
TECHxpo
Three Environmental Engineering teams attended and competed in the 6th Annual TECHxpo. Seth Garrity, Marcus Holland, Alison Lunde, and Hannah Ruble (above), won Best in Show for Montana Tech. Emma Wooldridge, Madison Cyr, Matthew Kilsdonk, and Shyla Allred won Best Booth in the Environmental Department and Eric Hull won Best Poster in the Environmental Department.
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING TEAMS AND DESIGNS
Best in Show
Passive Solar Distillation of ARD Waters
Seth Garrity, Marcus Holland, Alison Lunde, and Hannah Ruble
Booth
Improving Evaporation Rates in Contaminated Water Bodies with Carbon Foam Structure
Emma Wooldridge, Madison Cyr, Matthew Kilsdonk, Shyla Allred
Poster
140 Acid Rock Drainage Treatment using Membrane Distillation: Impacts of Chemical-Free Pretreatment on Scale Formation, Pore Wetting, and Product Water Quality
Eric Hull