{"id":672,"date":"2011-04-04T23:15:47","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T06:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oregonstate.edu\/sustainability\/blog\/?p=672"},"modified":"2011-04-04T23:15:47","modified_gmt":"2011-04-05T06:15:47","slug":"osu-engineering-students-partner-with-city-of-corvallis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/2011\/04\/04\/osu-engineering-students-partner-with-city-of-corvallis\/","title":{"rendered":"OSU engineering students partner with City of Corvallis"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m always looking for cool examples of how OSU interacts with and supports the Corvallis community on sustainability issues.\u00a0 One such story, recently detailed in the City of Corvallis<\/a> newsletter, is a partnership between the School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering<\/a> and the City to sponsor senior projects at the Corvallis Wastewater Reclamation Plant.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Kris De Jong, editor of “the City” newsletter, for letting us post the article.\u00a0 The text and photos were provided by Keith Turner, Utilities Services Supervisor, City of Corvallis.\u00a0 Check out the full version of the City newsletter online.<\/a><\/p>\n

–Brandon<\/em><\/p>\n

Wastewater Reclamation Plant Partnership<\/span><\/h3>\n

The Wastewater Reclamation Plant (WWRP) is partnering with the OSU School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering to sponsor senior projects.\u00a0 The elective program, led by Dr. Philip Harding, creates projects in collaboration with local industry and government allowing students to gain real-world experience working beside seasoned professionals.\u00a0 At the same time, sponsors gain solutions to real problems they are facing.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Tanks<\/span>
Tanks at Corvallis Wastewater Reclamation Plant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last spring, OSU students analyzed energy use at the WWRP Chemical Storage building and discovered several opportunities. Storage conditions for chemicals used in the wastewater disinfection and dechlorination process must be kept above 55 degrees to keep the active chemicals in solution.\u00a0 (Insert Picture of Tanks) Another issue is that the building must be ventilated to keep working conditions safe for staff.\u00a0 A system to recover the heat loss is currently in place, but natural gas is still required and the usage is higher than staff would like.<\/span><\/p>\n

One alternative explored is a high-energy waste gas produced as a byproduct of the WWRP treatment process.\u00a0 Much of this energy is recovered using a boiler (Insert Picture) to heat the digester and onsite WWRP buildings, but the OSU students thought we could do better.\u00a0 They analyzed historic chemical storage building natural gas use, ambient temperatures, and the heat exchanger capacity of the heat recovery system.\u00a0 They found that it would be cost-effective to use the waste gas to heat the Chemical Storage building and to convert the heat recovery system to a more efficient one.\u00a0 The estimated savings would be about $1,600 per year in addition to reducing natural gas usage and maximizing waste gas usage.\u00a0 This project is now in the pipeline for implementation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking ahead, a new team of OSU students is gearing up for a project to optimize the wastewater nutrient removal processes at the WWRP.\u00a0 Certain wastewater streams are rich in nitrogen, phosphorous, magnesium and other nutrients.\u00a0 WWRP processes are currently able to remove some nutrients, but again, staff would like to do more.\u00a0 In coming weeks, the students will be investigating two nutrient removal processes and determining the best blend of waste streams to remove the most nutrients. It is hoped that the recovered nutrients can be economically captured in a form suitable for use as a fertilizer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Boiler<\/span>
Boiler at Corvallis Wastewater Reclamation Plant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staff at the Wastewater Reclamation Plant appreciate this new partnership with the OSU School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering.\u00a0 We look forward to many years of beneficial and fun projects that engage local students in improving City operations for our community.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m always looking for cool examples of how OSU interacts with and supports the Corvallis community on sustainability issues.\u00a0 One such story, recently detailed in the City of Corvallis newsletter, is a partnership between the School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering and the City to sponsor senior projects at the Corvallis Wastewater Reclamation Plant. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":784,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1292117,1292103,1292102],"tags":[340],"class_list":["post-672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-sustainability","category-energy","category-water","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/784"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/ecologue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}