Renovation of the Environmental Engineering and Sciences Research Laboratories

美国国家科学基金会和伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校将共同资助土木工程系环境工程和科学研究实验室的改造。这些设施位于纽马克土木工程实验室的四楼，该实验室建于1967年。原来的空间被设计成用于水质研究的传统化学实验室。然而，在过去的28年里，环境实验室目前和拟议的研究活动发生了很大的变化，现有的设施已经完全不足以应对日益严格的饮用水、废水和固体废物法规，有效、低成本的有害废物溢出和倾倒清理策略，以及气溶胶科学和空气资源工程。整修活动将集中于加强暖通空调和系统，以及安全处理危险材料的设施。温度、颗粒和湿度控制对于精密的电子仪器、精心控制的实验和样品分析是必要的。由于没有安全处理有害物质的设施，许多领域的环境研究都没有进行。空间重新配置和增加通风柜和溶剂存储将解决这一需求。此外，在国家科学基金会的支持下，安装一个增强的实验室间数据通信系统，重新设计和改进实验台配置和案例工作将是重要的工作。整修后的设施将成为四个主要领域的研究和研究培训工作的重要资产：环境微生物学和生物过程工程；物理/化学处理工艺；气溶胶科学与空气资源工程；以及生物监测和环境资源管理。新设施将帮助研究人员发展内部能力，将分子生物学技术应用于水质控制研究，准备实地研究和样本分析，以及安全有效地处理有机化合物和环境病原体。项目受惠者包括教师9人，硕士生50人，博士生25人。20%的研究生是女性，5%是黑人或西班牙裔。为了鼓励更多未被充分代表的少数民族参与博士项目，学院已经努力招收和留住更多的这些学生。

NSF and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign will jointly fund the renovation of the Environmental Engineering and Science Research Laboratories of the Department of Civil Engineering. The facilities are located on the fourth floor of the Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory which was built in 1967. The original space was designed as traditional chemistry laboratories for use in water quality research. However, current and proposed research activities in the Environmental Laboratories have changed substantially over the past 28 years, and the existing facilities have become completely inadequate to address increasingly stringent regulations for drinking water, wastewater and solid waste, efficient, low-cost clean up strategies for hazardous waste spills and dumps, and aerosol science and air resources engineering. Renovation activity will focus on the enhancement of the HVAC and systems, and facilities for safe handling of hazardous materials. Temperature, particle, and humidity control are necessary for delicate electronic instrumentation, carefully controlled experiments and sample analysis. Many areas of environmental research have not been pursued, because facilities were not available to safely handle hazardous materials. Space reconfiguration and the addition of fume hoods and solvent storage will address this need. In addition, installation of an enhanced system for inter-laboratory data communications and re-design and improvement of bench configurations and casework will be important work undertaken with NSF support. The renovated facility will be a significant asset to research and research training efforts in four main areas: environmental microbiology and biological process engineering; physical/chemical treatment processes; aerosol science and air resources engineering; and biological monitoring and environmental resource management. The new facilities will aid researchers in the development of an in-house capability to apply molecular biology techniques to water quality control research, preparation of field studies and sample analysis, and for the safe and efficient handling of organic compounds and environmental pathogens. The beneficiaries of the project include 9 faculty, 50 masters and 25 Ph.D. students. Twenty percent of the graduate students are women, and 5% are Black or Hispanic. Wishing to encourage participation by a greater number of under-represented minorities in the Ph.D. program, the college has developed an effort to recruit and retain an increased number of these students.