Author: Rich

Our article on modeling metal concentrates in surface water is a featured article in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry! Thanks again to all of my co-authors on this manuscript. https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.4417

ASCE has honored myself, Marc A. Santos and Robert R. Sharp with the 2019 Samuel Arnold Greeley Award for the paper “Control Strategies for the Mitigation and Removal of Attached Manganese Biofilms,” in the January 2018 issue of the Journal of Environmental Engineering.
https://news.asce.org/writing-team-selected-for-greeley-award/

This year’s Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Conference (SETAC) is in Sacramento from November 4 to 8.  I’m chairing a session on “Fate and Effects of Metals: Biogeochemical Perspective” with my colleague Kevin Rader.  We are also presenting a series of papers on rapid removal of metals from the water column.   Hope to see you there!

Welcome back everyone. This semester I’m teaching Advanced Unit Operations in the graduate Environmental Engineering program at Manhattan College. This course covers advanced unit process such as carbon adsorption, ion exchange and chemical oxidation for the treatment of water and wastewater. What I really like about teaching this class is that we have the opportunity to cover processes in depth, spending up to two full weeks per process. Since this is an advanced course, there are prerequisites such as ENGS 204 (Environmental Engineering Principles) and ENVL/G 506 (Water and Wastewater treatment). E-mail me if you have any questions or would like more information on the course.

Next semester I am teaching ENVG 736 – Advanced Unit Operations on Monday nights at Manhattan College. Here is the course description: Advanced study of the processes used for water and wastewater treatment with an emphasis on design principles and process modeling. Processes covered include reactor design and analysis, carbon adsorption, ion exchange, chemical oxidation of inorganic and organic contaminants, primary and secondary disinfection, strategies for control of disinfection byproducts and membrane technologies.

I’m happy to report that my paper on Cr(III)-aminocarboxylate oxidation was just posted to the Environmental Chemistry journal website. The paper describes rates and product distribution of Cr(III) complexes with the chelating agents iminodiacetic acid (IDA) and nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA). This is the first published work that discusses rates of oxidation of distinct Cr(III) complexed to organic ligands.

A great little video created by the American Chemical Society on the chemistry of snowflakes:

The video summarizes nicely what is in Ken-Libbrecht’s Field Guide to Snowflakes, which is a wonderful visual introduction to the morphology of snowflakes.

Congrats to graduate student Olivia Derderian who won the best paper competition at the University Forum at this years NYWEA Winter Meeting in NYC. Olivia presented her paper entitled “Degradation of Water Quality of the Saw Mill River Due to Urban Runoff.”