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NETI is part of the Massachusetts
Strategic Envirotechnology Partnership Program (STEP), a collaborative
group involving UMass, the Massachusetts Executive Office
of Environmental Affairs, and the Massachusetts Department
of Economic Development. STEP's agenda is to promote research,
development and technology transfer at UMass Amherst, as well
as at the university's Boston, Lowell, and Dartmouth campuses.
Annual funding for NETI comes from monies allocated by the
State Legislature to support STEP. From 1995 through 1997,
this funding remained stable at $1.5 million, with NETI's
share at approximately $600,000. In the 1998 fiscal year,
it was increased to $2.0 million, and NETI's budget for the
year rose to $770,000.
In order to qualify for funding under the NETI program, academic
departments must enter into research collaborations with industrial
partners that either match the legislature's contribution
with industry funds, or match it "in-kind", meaning
that they provide non-cash resources such as space, data,
equipment, or staff support. Grants are awarded following
an extensive review process by the NETI Advisory Board, which
is comprised of representatives from the university, industry,
a variety of government and research institutions, and other
technical experts.
Upstairs in his office at Blaisdell House, a quaint turn-of-the-century
farmhouse tucked into a line of maple trees on the UMass campus,
Joseph Larson, the Chair of NETI's Advisory Board, pauses
reflectively
before making the point that the organization's greatest asset
is its partnership with industry. "It's imperative to
demonstrate to the legislature that when we do research it's
important to industry," he said. "Here we prove
it's important by having an industrial partner."
And of industrial partners there has been no shortage. Companies
that have participated in NETI research projects include Polaroid,
ChemDesign, General Electric, and United Technologies, among
others. These
companies have come to UMass with myriad challenges ranging
from the need to separate and recycle chemicals in the design
process, to minimizing occupational chemical exposures among
their workers. In
tackling these problems, they have tapped into the academic
brain power contained in the departments of Chemical Engineering,
Polymer Science and Engineering, Mechanical and Industrial
Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the
School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Larson is unequivocal
in his regard for these departments as they STEP up to the
plate. "What pleases me is that we've been able to attract
the involvement of faculty in some nationally renowned departments,"
he said.
Many projects funded under the NETI program are yielding process
design technologies with potentially widespread uses. For
example, Curtis Conner and Robert Lawrence of the department
of Chemical Engineering, together with their industrial partner
ChemDesign Corporation, based in Fitchburg, MA, are investigating
ways to remove a class of chemicals known as volatile organic
compounds (VOCs) from process streams and plant atmospheres
so they can be recycled. VOCs derive from chemical solvents,
which are required for many industrial processes. Among the
most common industrial pollutants, VOCs can pose a significant
hazard to human health if inadvertently released to the environment.
A number of them are classified by the US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) as either known or suspected human carcinogens.
Therefore, cost-effective and environmentally friendly methods
to reduce the use and potential release of these chemicals
are interesting to any industry that uses solvents ? for example,
the power, petrochemical, and materials industries.
To accomplish this goal, Conner and Lawrence have been working
with what they call zeolites, which are sieves with pores
so small they selectively trap VOC molecules before they enter
process effluents. The
VOCs are removed from the zeolites using microwave radiation,
and are then recovered for future use. The use of microwaves
to "regenerate" the zeolites is revolutionary. Traditionally,
separation technologies
have employed heat ? VOCs will volatilize at lower temperatures
than most other compounds in the waste mixture providing the
opportunity to recover them as vapors. However, Conner and
Thompson have
found that microwaves do the same job using one-third the
energy. Hence, the mutual goals of improved environmental
protection and reduced cost are simultaneously achieved.
NETI also funded VOC recovery research in the laboratories
of Michael Malone and Michael Doherty, also professors in
the Department of Chemical Engineering. Malone and Doherty
worked the problem from a different angle, however. Rather
than attempting to remove spent solvents from waste effluents,
they looked at ways to recover and reuse them at active points
in the process cycle. Their goal was to prove that for certain
chemicals, the reaction and separation phases of a given process
could be accomplished simultaneously ? an improvement in process
design that would limit the production of toxic by-products.They
succeeded with a model they called a "Simultaneous Reaction-Separation
System". "We try to make solvent recovery processes
more tightly integrated with the main chemistry," wherever
there is slack time in the process." said Malone. "The
traditional approach has been that first you do the chemistry,
then you do the separation. We're looking at doing the separation
along with the chemistry. Sometimes you can do it effectively,
sometimes you can't." The results of their pioneering
research were recently published in the August 1997 issue
of Nature, one of the world's leading research journals.
Through its partnership with Polaroid, Malone and Doherty
were able to apply their approach to an actual separation
problem faced by industry. Malone is enthusiastic about Polaroid's
contribution to their
research. "They provided us with real separation problems.
We worked with their engineers, tried out methods on their
system that really worked. We got feedback [from Polaroid]
on things we might never have thought of."
NETI's research agenda is not limited to changes in process
design, however. Researchers at the UMass School of Public
Health and Health Sciences have also looked at how workers
are exposed to chemicals in
industrial settings. This research has yielded technologies
that will make work environments cleaner and safer. Salvatore
R. DiNardi, for example, has developed instrumentation that
allows workers to monitor
their exposures by being videotaped while on a production
line. This methodology, referred to as the Video-Source Emission
Assessment Technology (VSEAT), superimposes concentrations
of airborne
pollutants on a video image, so that viewers can see the operations
that lead to worker exposures in real time. DiNardi has worked
on this project with a number of dry cleaning operations based
in Western
Massachusetts.
Ultimately, the goal is for NETI to emerge as a national and
international player in pollution prevention research. Larson
is aggressively seeking to "build bridges to Washington"
to include federal agencies as
active funding partners in NETI's growing coalition. As a
pitch to federal agencies, he points to Massachusetts legislators,
Douglas Petersen and Robert Durand, both of whom stand firmly
behind NETI, and share his enthusiasm for its continued growth.
NETI is also participating in a number of national "Green
Chemistry" initiatives sponsored by the US Environmental
Protection Agency, and was one of four university programs
invited to participate in the 1997 Green Chemistry and Engineering
Conference, held in June 1997, at the National Academy of
Sciences in Washington, DC.
According to DeVito, an important part of NETI's philosophy
is that it works to bring about important changes in environmental
protection without the use of increased regulations. "The
primary interaction is
between industry and academia," he said. "That's
why the program is such a success. Polaroid, General Electric,
Chem-Design, United Technologies - these are world class organizations
that don't invest in
something without putting a lot of thought into it. And it's
non-regulatory. This is the critical component, a new model."
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