Category: News

Congratulations to Dr. Snehesh Ail on his appointment to Associate Director of the Earth Engineering Center. The full title post, highlighting the accomplishments of Dr. Ail, is below.

The latest publishing by Dr. Marco J. Castaldi has received wide news coverage for providing the most up-to-date scientific data on waste-to-energy technologies. The report provides an extensive repository of data on waste-to-energy research which can be used to understand and contextualize the complex life cycle of municipal solid waste, as well as to determine the evidence based benefits of waste-to-energy. This report was covered by News 12 Long Island’s Geoff Bansen, found here. For more information about this important topic, please read the original report at this link.

Anna Naumova is an undergraduate student at the City College of New York and is graduating in Spring 2021 from the mechanical engineering program. She was awarded the Floyd Hasselriis Educational Support for her interest and work in solid waste management at the Earth Engineering Center (EEC|CCNY). Anna was involved in work investigating methods of repurposing ash coming from Waste-to-Energy plants into a product for the construction market.

Professor Castaldi has been interviewed on some of the thermal conversion aspects related to waste film plastic.  EEC has done some research in the past related to non-recycled plastic waste and recently focused on film plastic (i.e. wrapping, flexible contaniers, etc) demonstrating that thermal conversion processes are likely the best technology for treating that stream thus diverting from landfills.  For example, The range for the lower heating value for plastic waste was experimentally determined by EEC|CCNY to be between 22.9 and 41.0 MJ/kg (19.7-35.3 MMBtu/ton).  Evan after long term exposure the original heating value was reduced by less than 5% making thermal conversion technologies well-positioned to recover the inherent energy and residual metals.  Please see the excellent article done by Karine Vann of Waste Dive (The unfulfilled promises of plastic film recycling | Waste Dive)

CCL researcher Anjeza Arapi won the 2020 Floyd Hasselriis Awards offered by ASME Materials and Energy Recovery (MER) Division for her work in solid waste management. Anjeza is a graduate student at the City College of New York and is expected to graduate in Spring 2021. Anjeza is currently an associate at the Earth Engineering Center at the City College of New York and is involved in researching the mitigation of halogenic emissions from a waste-to-energy facility. She is developing different mitigation techniques by understanding the behavior of iodine in combustion facilities as well as using analytical methods for quantifying this unregulated pollutant. She has also been involved in a technical assessment on air pollution control technologies. Congratulations Anjeza!

CCL Congratulates Vishal Jadwani who was part of the KTH-CCNY Sweden-USA student exchange program.  Vishal worked with CCL during the summer for 2019 and focused on developing a testing and validation method to quantify and eliminate unexpected halogen emission plumes from waste to energy systems.  Vishal worked close with CCL members and EEC’s resident research engineering, Anjeza Arapi.  Vishal joined Northvolt’s Quality Control team for incoming materials for battery manufacturing. Northvolt is working towards making greener batteries for sustainable future.

Recently a published article in Annual Reviews in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering by Professor Castaldi was more brought to life through Knowable Magazine’s story by Michael Waldrop.  The article by Castaldi entitled “Perspectives on Sustainable Waste Management” provided an overview of how waste management is done and how it can be made to be more sustainable.

You can find the Knowable Magazine article at: https://knowablemagazine.org/article/food-environment/2020/recycling-meets-reality-feature

In addition, a complementary video produced by Bridget Hunnicutt and her team centered on the research done at EEC|CCNY and CCL focused on thermal conversion of residual waste that cannot be recycled.  To view the video please go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zI4xXGmNPw&t=186s

We are very happy that the work being done at EEC|CCNY and CCL is making a real impact and being disseminated through different outlets that are dedicated to presenting the facts of our current waste management systems and how they can be improved.

Recently Enerkem was featured on CNBC.  EEC has been working with Enerkem for the past several years on technical due diligences and some modeling and performance evaluations.  We are happy to see that Enerkem is getting some visibility and wish them continued success.

Please watch the video here.

Dear Colleagues,

Unfortunately, we must postpone the upcoming 2020 EEC|WTERT Biennial Conference that is scheduled for October 22^nd & 23^rd, 2020. Currently, there is no firm new date, but it is anticipated that the conference will occur in the Fall of 2021. We have delayed this decision for as long as possible to incorporate the most updated current information and projections related to the pandemic.

Unfortunately, New York City is currently operating on a limited schedule with 25% in-door dining permitted and most hotels closed until December of 2020.  Furthermore, The City College of New York, where the conference is scheduled to be held, is conducting classes mostly via remote format and has requested limiting on-campus events as much as possible.  In addition, we are aware that most private companies are not permitting or heavily limiting travel for non-critical business purposes. We were optimistic early in the summer that NYC would be more open, as evidenced back then that Broadway was planning to open near September 4^th, however those expectations never materialized.

We received enough abstracts, combined with invited presenters, to have a conference that would have been slightly more expanded than the previous two held at CCNY in 2016 and 2018. We seriously considered moving to an on-line format to allow the invited speakers and those who submitted abstracts to present their findings and thoughts. Yet after careful consideration that included participating, monitoring, and soliciting feedback on a virtual event, it has been determined that it would not be effective. An important factor in this determination is the international participation that our conference normally enjoys. For example, in 2018 there were a total of 12 countries represented that spanned several time zones (Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Korea, Sudan, UK and US). Additionally, an important component of our conference is the person-to-person interaction that allows attendees to make new connections and collaborations that normally would not occur in other settings. That interaction cannot happen in a virtual environment and the spontaneous discussions on the scientific topics also cannot occur via an on-line format.

Therefore, please keep our conference on your mind. We will be sending reminders and announcements as we develop more clarity. Stay safe. We look forward to seeing you next year.

Sincerely,

Anjeza Arapi, Snehesh Ail, Marco J. Castaldi

Nannette Hernandez, a former researcher at EEC, has been featured in the Fall 2020 ChE newsletter. The write-up details her career path after graduating from CCNY and how she is continuing her support for our ChE department.

The newsletter can be accesses with this link.