Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Chemical Engineering

The ill effects of climate change are unfolding in real time, as species and ecosystems face irreversible destruction. Climate action is needed now more than ever, as ambitious targets set by the Paris Agreement seem far-reaching in the wake of global average temperatures above 1.5C over their pre-industrial levels recorded over a continuous 12 month period for the first time. Countries, organizations, and companies alike have pledged to limit their net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the environment to zero, via nationally determined contributions and corporate net-zero commitments. Such commitments remain unattainable in the absence of guidance like convergent carbon accounting methods, systems models, and roadmapping frameworks. This dissertation seeks to bridge this gap for the chemicals and materials industry (CMI). The chemical industry generates the “hardest to abate” emissions among the industrial sector due to the fixed carbon content of its products. However, as chemical energy carriers such as hydrogen and methanol gain prominence as solutions to the intermittency issues of renewable energy, the net-zero transition of chemicals becomes tied to the net-zero goals of more expansive and ubiquitous industries such as the power sector. The decarbonization of chemicals to this end, requires estimation of material and carbon flows, and baseline emissions of its current global operations. The frameworks in literature lack appropriate structure and comprehensiveness for such analysis, and relevant process and price data are inaccessible and cost prohibitive. We therefore develop an inventory of first principle based, mass balance compliant, publicly available process and cost data for CMI processes, sourced from the public domain. We devise a regression framework capable of handling conflict ridden data, and an algorithm to map resource, intermediate, product, and emission flows of any chemical system with known product capacities. The resulting Global (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Bhavik Bakshi (Advisor); Joel Paulson (Committee Member); Lisa Hall (Committee Member) Subjects: Chemical Engineering; Climate Change; Energy; Engineering; Environmental Engineering; Technology

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Civil Engineering

Single-use products are prevalent in the healthcare field and contribute to 5.9 million tons of waste per year to landfills located in the United States. These single-use products also account for 8% of total US carbon dioxide emissions. In the healthcare field, there is limited research available to analyze the impacts these products have on the United States. When you refine the scope to specific healthcare practices, such as dentistry, the research available is even further limited. This study analyzes three dental procedures for their single-use plastic contribution. The three procedures are a hygiene cleaning, a composite restoration, and an extraction. These three procedures were chosen due to a hygiene cleaning being recommended for preventative care every six months, and the extraction and restoration were chosen as they are procedures that can be a result for lack of preventative care. These procedures are analyzed using an environmental impact tool called Life Cycle Assessment. Life Cycle Assessments generates the impacts from a product, process or service and analyzes environmental impacts under different categories to generate units of measure to convey impacts. The data that is currently available using Life Cycle Assessments in the dental field is small and is nearly non-existent when you refine the scope to only being within the United States. Having geographical location-based information is important particularly for this study due to the differences in manufacturing and waste management systems in the United States. The results for this Life Cycle Assessment will be analyzed using midpoint and endpoint indicators as well as human health categories from different methodologies. Climate change is taking a toll on human health in the United States along with other nations. Unless greenhouse gases are reduced significantly and actions are taken, impacts will be felt on surrounding communities and human health will be impacted. Taking preventative (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jeffrey Bielicki (Advisor); Kelsea Best (Committee Member); Daniel Gingerich (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Engineering; Environmental Health

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2023, Engineering and Applied Science: Environmental Engineering

Higher education institutions like universities accommodate a large number of students, which leads to the generation of large volumes of waste. A major part of this waste is organic, and a sustainable waste management method is needed to divert this waste from sanitary landfills. Commercial in-vessel composting systems are a relatively new technology that has been recently popular for the fast rate of organic waste degradation, convenience of operation, and odor control. Oklin GG-10 is an in-vessel composting system that is able to process organic waste in 24 hours. This system is able to process waste up to 25 kg/day, making it a suitable sustainable waste management option for cafeterias at universities. University of Cincinnati (UC) acquired this system to evaluate the performance of the in-vessel composting system for processing organic waste from one of UC's dining halls. The operating conditions of the in-vessel system along with the characteristics of the final product and overall environmental impact of the in-vessel composter were evaluated. Further, this evaluation addressed concerns regarding the maturity and applicability of the final product. The composting process reduced the food waste volume by 81±5% (v/v) in a 24-hour period. The compost had an acidic pH (range of 4 to 5) throughout its operation period of five months. The composter was externally heated and maintained above 40°C. The composter had a high aeration rate, and the food waste was consistently turned by rotational blades that lowered the moisture content of the compost by 52% (w/w) in a 24-hour period. This process produced an extremely dehydrated compost that required daily addition of water to maintain an adequate moisture level. Further, the average sodium and chloride amounts of the final compost was 1.2 and 1.7 % (dry weight), respectively, and the Agricultural Index (Ag Index) ranged between 2 to 3, indicating high levels of sodium and chlorides compared to macronutrients N, P (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Drew McAvoy Ph.D. (Committee Chair); David Wendell Ph.D. (Committee Member); Margaret Kupferle Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Civil Engineering

Reducing CO2 emissions will be critical for meeting global targets of net zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050 and net negative CO2 emissions by 2100. To help meet these emission reduction targets there will need to be a rapid transition from a historical reliance on fossil fuels for energy generation to renewable and low CO2 emission energy generation technologies, a so-called energy transition. The energy transition will feature an increase in demand for valuable resources like rare earth elements and see widespread deployment of carbon capture, utilization, and storage infrastructure. In the first chapter we explore a novel trap-extract-precipitate (TEP) system that looks to trap rare earth elements (REEs) found in coal mine drainage before later extracting the REEs from the trap material. We apply a techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment to two different iterations of the TEP system design to determine a levelized cost of the process and associated environmental and human health impacts. Our results indicate that the levelized cost of the process is $278/gT-REE and $86/gT-REE for two designs using different industrial by-products. Further, when considering just the passive treatment cell of the system design, we observe environmental and human health benefits that are lost once we shift the scope to include the chemical extraction of REEs. Chapter 3 evaluates the impact of stacked storage on carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems by looking at how networks change when CO2 is emplaced in different geologic CO2 storage (GCS) locations. This case study focuses on Oklahoma, which has GCS resources and existing CO2-EOR operations, both needed for stacked storage. We use an economic engineering geospatial linear optimization model, SimCCSPRO, to determine the least cost combination of point sources, GCS locations, and pipeline networks. Our results suggest point sources of CO2 drive CCS pipeline network deployment. Additionally, we identify counties t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jeffrey Bielicki (Advisor); Daniel Gingerich (Committee Member); Gil Bohrer (Committee Member); Jordan Clark (Committee Member) Subjects: Civil Engineering; Environmental Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Environmental Science

The dissertation investigates how policies on trade and sustainability affect regional food, water, and energy systems in the Midwest region of the United States. Crop production activities in this region have significant environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions and eutrophication. To evaluate the impacts of policies on trade and sustainability on nutrient runoff, a regional watershed model was developed by training a random forest model with observed data and results from a Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. The developed model was integrated with land use and economy models to assess whether five trade and sustainability scenarios could meet the phosphorus reduction target of the Maumee River Watershed. The findings suggest that consistent efforts to increase effective management practices have greater potential to decrease the harmful algae blooms compared to global trade impacts. Additionally, the dissertation evaluates GHG emissions of county-level corn farming in the Midwest of the United States with spatially explicit absolute environmental life cycle assessment. The results suggest further investigations of Utilities sector in Indiana to reduce GHG emissions from corn farming in the Midwest of the United States, and demonstrate needs of updating the framework and economy level models. When we consider the consequences of policies on both watershed and GHG emissions, it is essential to consider interactions and feedbacks to the economic and the land use models for more integrated approach. To meet this goal, future work is suggested. For instance, the regional watershed model and multi-regional hybrid life cycle assessment framework can be integrated to assess the temporal and spatial explicit life cycle impact of crop farming for global warming potential and eutrophication. Furthermore, the economy and land use model can provide temporal inputs and outputs for crop farming, which expands the study to dynamic LCA. Most importantly, (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Bhavik Bakshi (Advisor); Gil Bohrer (Committee Member); Jay Martin (Committee Member); Jeffrey Bielicki (Advisor) Subjects: Environmental Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Chemical Engineering

The growing ecological footprint of human activities and large-scale industrialization have brought Earth and its natural eco-systems to a precarious state. Progress towards a Sustainable Circular Economy (SCE) is crucial to mitigate exploitation of natural resources, curb climate change and reduce accumulation of man-made materials in the environment as pollution. An optimal ‘roadmap' to facilitate the transition to a SCE, and to limit global temperature rise in the next 30 years to 2oC needs to be found. This dissertation focuses on developing mathematical frameworks and optimization tool-kits to holistically design current and future value-chain networks of products and services for SCE. These frameworks are demonstrated for case-studies pertaining to the transition of plastic packaging networks towards SCE. Utilizing process systems engineering and data analytics along with life cycle assessment, optimal value-chain pathways are found considering the environmental, economic, and social aspects of potential alternatives. A multi-objective superstructure optimization framework is developed to quantify the trade-offs between these SCE objectives in the form of Pareto-fronts. Applied to the grocery bags' life-cycle, this framework is able to quantify the paper-plastic dilemma; explore trade-offs between climate-change and recycling; and find emission hot-spots in current value-chains. Further, a novel multi-scale framework is developed to evaluate ‘green' chemical reaction-separation networks based on their interactions with the life-cycle and economy scales, thereby providing a tool to design systemic transformations of the chemical industry towards SCE. These frameworks are combined within a rigorous screening and ranking methodology to guide emerging technologies, climate actions using multi-objective metrics, and discover novel synergies between technology and policy-action. Finally, a stochastic portfolio optimization and planning framework is developed to gene (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Bhavik Bakshi (Advisor); Joel Paulson (Committee Member); Stuart Cooper (Committee Member) Subjects: Chemical Engineering; Energy; Environmental Science; Operations Research; Sustainability; Systems Design

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Engineering and Applied Science: Environmental Engineering

Managing modern microgrids for the 21st century will require looking beyond the intelligent control of complex microgrids and their coupling with centralized power grids. Incorporating multiple-objective optimization for sustainable decision-making purposes is a step toward providing end-users with reliable, cost-effective heating and power with minimum environmental impacts. A simulation model, based on nonlinear mathematical programming principles, is proposed to optimize a microgrid using economic and environmental impact objectives, using the University of Cincinnati's (UC) combined heat and power (CHP) microgrid as a case study. The economic objective focuses on minimizing operation costs, as subset of variable costs, that include electricity import and natural gas fuel costs to daily operate the microgrid's CHP process. The environmental impact objective concentrates on minimizing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (i.e., carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) from the supply chain and microgrid system boundary on a cradle-to-grave lifecycle basis using a life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Three different analysis applications are investigated to optimize the simulation model of UC's CHP microgrid using the stated single and multiple objectives in MATLAB, harnessing MATLAB's Optimization Toolbox solvers to perform prescriptive analytics. The results of each analysis can assist operation managers with identifying economically or environmentally optimal operating conditions, commodity pricing thresholds and operational trends that can inform the development of optimal operation strategies, as well as Pareto optimal trade-off curves to reduce GHG emissions for the case study process. The fundamental conclusion taken from the multiple-objective optimization analysis is that managers can make sizable reductions (15-30% in the investigated examples) in greenhouse gas emissions while incurring smaller economic penalties (5-15% in the investigated examples) usi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Margaret Kupferle Ph.D. (Committee Member); Stephen Thiel Ph.D. (Committee Member); Patrick Ray Ph.D. (Committee Member); Drew McAvoy Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Corn (Zea mays L.) grain and stover are the primary feedstock for first- and second-generation biofuel production in the U.S. due to their abundant availability. While corn grain-based biofuel has already reached the mandated target, cellulosic biofuel production from corn stover has been a struggle. Harvest and post-harvest logistics of corn stover is one of the major challenges faced by the cellulosic biofuel producers. Existing corn stover harvest and post-harvest logistics system uses a multi-pass approach to bale the biomass in the field, collects biomass with high soil contamination, and produce bales with low bulk density that doesn't fulfill the payload capacity of the trucks used for transportation. The novel whole-plant (WP) corn harvest and post-harvest logistics system addresses all of these challenges by cutting the corn plant at the ear level and baling the corn plant with its ear intact corn ear in a single-pass, which also reduces the harvest operations and soil contamination of the biomass. In addition, with the inclusion of corn ear in the bale, the bulk density of the bales produced is increased, which improves the productivity of the post-harvest logistical operations including handling, storage and transportation. Thus, the main objectives of this dissertation were to evaluate the harvest timing and physico-chemical properties of WP corn in season, evaluate the storage characteristics of WP corn when densified into small and large rectangular bales, and assess the techno-economic feasibility and life-cycle energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the WP corn logistics system. Corn grain and stover harvest timing is mainly dictated by their moisture, where corn grain harvest is followed by stover harvest. Since they are harvested at the same time in this system, it was important to determine the suitable harvest timing for WP corn that would minimize storage losses. Moisture and dry matter of the corn plant were tracked we (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ajay Shah (Advisor) Subjects: Agricultural Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Chemical Engineering

Sustainability assessment has become one of the essential tools for process and supply chain design problems to ensure the well-being of future generations. Sustainability assessment methods such as life cycle assessment have been used to identify opportunities for improvement of technologies and help the decision-making process. However, environmental impacts may result in ecological overshoot and shift across space, time, flows, and disciplines. To avoid unintended outcomes due to burden shifting, sustainability assessment methods need to account for ecosystem services, multiple spatial scales, temporal dynamics, multiple flows, and cross-disciplinary effects. This dissertation contributes to advance the methods for sustainability assessment, sustainable process design, and sustainable supply chain design by considering market constraints, climate change effects, and the nexus of multiple flows. Decisions made by approaches that only consider the environmental domain could result in unexpected outcomes due to burden shifting to economic and social domains. For example, the conventional sustainability assessment approaches assume advanced technologies can be adopted by the market due to technological advances. However, the market does not always choose the "best" technology because of market effects, such as market demand and economic resource availability. These unintended consequences could occur through the entire supply chain at multiple spatial scales. In this dissertation, a novel multiscale technology choice modeling framework is introduced to take account of market constraints as a consequential approach for designing engineering processes and supply chain networks. The case study focuses on the installation of new green urea production systems in a watershed where there are limited supplies of resources, such as water and land. This multiscale consequential framework is useful for modeling the substitution effects of emerging technologies while conside (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Bhavik Bakshi (Advisor); Jeffrey Bielicki (Committee Member); Sami Khanal (Committee Member); James Rathman (Committee Member) Subjects: Chemical Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 0, EMC - Mechanical Engineering

The transportation sector is one of the largest contributors to global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, takes 23% of total energy-related carbon emissions globally. More than 53% of primary oil is consumed in the transportation sector to meet 94% of energy needs (93 exajoule). Furthermore, from the perspective of transportation-related goods and services, 8.9% of the total U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2016, is responsible for the transportation sector. In order to handle these issues, electric vehicles (EVs) are widely promoted as clean alternatives to conventional vehicles for reducing fossil fuel consumption, GHG emissions and improving energy efficiency from ground transportation. However, there are remaining concerns about the actual techno-economic impacts of EVs due to the complexity in vehicular operation conditions and battery degradation processes. Vehicular operation conditions, such as travel demand and ambient temperature, can substantially affect the vehicle power need within the operation process and further influence their energy consumption and GHG emissions. Meanwhile, the battery within EV undergoes a complex degradation process that is highly sensitive to vehicular operations condition, and the effects of battery degradation on EV techno-economic performance are yet understudied. Therefore, this dissertation developed a systematic life cycle framework incorporating the mathematic physical-based battery degradation model to address the context-dependent electric vehicle techno-economic performance assessment problems, including both the vehicle and battery pack operating processes. The objective of this dissertation is to provide a robust analytical approach for supporting policymaking in prioritizing EV deployment to achieve both the environmental and economic goals. These findings help understanding of the spatiotemporal application of EV automotive and battery technologies from both the economic and techno perspective. Furthermore, the re (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Chris Yuan (Committee Chair); Fumiaki Takahashi (Committee Member); Sunniva Collins (Committee Member); Li Yue (Committee Member); Heo YeongAe (Committee Member) Subjects: Mechanical Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Chemical Engineering

Sustainable process design (SPD) has employed life cycle assessment (LCA) methods for determining the environmental impact while designing manufacturing technologies. However, deficiencies in LCA propagate to the design problem, resulting in suboptimal solutions. For example, despite the wide use of LCA for environmental profiling, the approach for determining the system boundary continues to be subjective and lacking in mathematical rigor. As a result, life cycle models are often developed in an ad-hoc manner, making it difficult to compare results across different studies. Significant environmental impacts may be inadvertently left out and ensuring inclusion of the most important activities in the selected system boundary is difficult to guarantee. Furthermore, conventional SPD has mostly ignored the supply and limits of ecological system services such as resource availability and pollution remediation among others. Not including flows to and from ecosystems in engineering has resulted in designs that exceed nature's carrying capacity leading to unintended environmental degradation. Studies have already demonstrated that engineering designs incorporating ecosystems can be environmentally and economically superior to conventional techno-centric designs. However, spatial variability of ecosystems has not been considered in these studies. One more significant drawback of SPD is that it does not consider market components such as supply demand elasticities, changing taxes and prices which may have a significant effect on design decisions as well as on the environmental impacts. Conventional LCA directly compares a functional unit of a new technology with a base technology and determines which one is environmentally superior. It does not consider the introduction of this technology into society, its acceptance and the ripple effects that might occur due to such a technology in the real world. Such a problem can be thought of as being analogous to a chemical engin (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Bhavik R. Bakshi (Advisor) Subjects: Chemical Engineering

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2019, Chemical Engineering

Carbon capture has been regarded as one of the viable solutions to mitigate the global warming effect due to CO2 emission and sustain the use of fossil fuels, but the energy load associated with implementing carbon capture in coal-fired power stations can notably decrease the efficiency of power generation. To overcome the deficiency, exploring novel materials for carbon capture has drawn significant attention. Specifically, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been identified as promising adsorbents for carbon capture because of their highly tunable nature, selective adsorption, and large adsorption capacity. A large number of MOFs have been discovered in recent years, and many of them have been demonstrated to possess promising separation performance. To date, most of the studies reported have mainly focused on exploring potential MOF candidates by evaluating their adsorption properties (e.g., selectivity) or their performance using a process model. Although MOFs have been demonstrated to show potentially better performance (i.e., less energy intensity) than MEA, the overall impact by this emerging new class of materials remains unknown. To this end, to facilitate the development of a new technology based on MOF adsorbents, the overall impacts of implementing MOF-based carbon capture, including the energy load and resource depletion from the MOF synthesis process as well as other steps in the whole life cycle of MOFs, should be considered. In this study, we present a comprehensive life-cycle analysis for a selected set of 50 MOFs to evaluate the overall impact of MOF-based post-combustion carbon capture and compared with that by MEA. Our results again show the great promise of MOFs in carbon capture. From the life cycle point of view, besides the energy load of capturing carbon using MOFs, we find significant impacts from the use of solvent in MOF-based carbon capture. Furthermore, the key role of MOF stability is also identified in determining the overall impact. (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Li-Chiang Lin (Advisor); Bhavik Bakshi R (Advisor) Subjects: Chemical Engineering

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2019, Chemical Engineering

Conventional life cycle assessment method (LCA) has been used to compare environmental impacts between alternatives, which sheds some light in product optimization and environmental improvements. However, the role of ecosystems played across the life cycle of a product was not considered by LCA methodology, which actually matters much. To achieve absolute environmental sustainability, the ecosystems should be able to provide goods and services and cannot be adversely affected. The method techno-ecological synergy in life cycle assessment (TES-LCA) used in this study has enable the assessment of absolute environmental sustainability since demands and supplies of ecosystem services are considered while LCA cannot. The product studied in this study is soybean biodiesel. The functional unit assigned is 1 liter of biodiesel. Three ecosystem services are considered at multiple spatial scales: air quality regulation service, water provisioning and carbon sequestration services. The results indicate that only water provisioning service is environmentally sustainable at both local and serviceshed scale. Neither local nor serviceshed environmental sustainability can be claimed for biodiesel life cycle in carbon sequestration service and air quality regulation service (CO). The other three air pollutants considered for air quality regulation service: NO2, PM10 and SO2 are environmentally sustainable at local scale but unsustainable at serviceshed scale.

Committee: Bhavik Bakshi (Advisor) Subjects: Chemical Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2019, EMC - Mechanical Engineering

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have attracted enormous attention in recent years due to their high theoretical power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) and relatively low cost. The outstanding performance is attributed to the unique physical parameters of perovskite materials, and these physical parameters were analyzed by mathematic models in this study. Although PSCs have exceptional performance, their environmental sustainability causes grave concerns due to the lead material contained in the perovskite dyes and material- and energy-intensive processes involved in the manufacturing process. The cradle-to-gate environmental impacts of a liquid-state titania nanotube (TNT)-based PSCs were evaluated by using an attributional life cycle assessment (LCA) method, and it has been found that the lead production was not a major contributor to the human toxicity potential (HTP), which only takes up less than 0.3% of HTP in the life cycle. Particle size and distribution of nano-wastes and nano-emissions generated from the TNT film fabrication were also characterized in the study. With the development of perovskite PV technologies, different types of solid-state PSCs were developed to enhance the power conversion efficiency (PCE), stability, and environmental performance. The cradle-to-grave environmental impacts of five representative PSCs were evaluated and compared by building LCA models. The solvent usage was identified to be the main reason for the various LCA results among different systems, and the replacement of fresh organic solvents with recycled organic solvents results in more than 26% of GWP reduction in all systems. Currently, PSCs are expected to be scaled up to fulfill commercial demands. The most promising manufacturing methods to fabricate the large-scale perovskite PV systems were identified, and their environmental impacts were evaluated and compared based on their LCA models. The greenhouse gas emissions generated from producing 1 kWh of electricity (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Chris Yuan (Advisor); Yue Li (Committee Member); Roger French (Committee Member); Chirag Kharangate (Committee Member); Bo Li (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Engineering; Mechanical Engineering

Master of Sciences (Engineering), Case Western Reserve University, 2019, Civil Engineering

Tornadoes are hazards of low probability of occurrence and high consequences that cost the United States billions of dollars each year. Electric power distribution systems are susceptible to damage due to tornadoes with the utility poles being the most vulnerable components. Additionally, the reliability of power distribution systems can be affected by the deterioration of the strength of utility poles with age. Many utility companies nowadays are considering the use of steel and prestressed concrete poles instead of wood poles, which are the most widely used in the United States. Up to date, very few studies have been performed to study the behavior of power networks when subjected to tornadoes. This research proposes a framework to perform reliability analysis, cost analysis, and target hardening of power distribution systems subjected to tornado hazard. It also offers a framework to compare the reliability of wood, steel, and prestressed concrete utility poles subjected to tornadoes through fragility analysis considering the deterioration of the strength of the poles with age.

Committee: Yue Li (Advisor); Xiong Yu (Committee Member); Michael Pollino (Committee Member) Subjects: Civil Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2018, Civil Engineering

This dissertation explores the eco-design concepts for emerging PV cells. By conducting life cycle assessment (LCA) method, I addressed the following questions: (1) What is the environmental impact of a scalable perovskite PV cell? (2) How important are the metal emissions from the emerging thin film devices during the use phase? (3) What are the environmental impacts and costs of the materials used in emerging PVs? These questions are addressed in the analyses presented in the Chapters two, three and four, respectively. Chapter two assesses the environmental impacts of perovskites PVs that have device structures suitable for low cost manufacturing. A structure with an inorganic hole transport layer (HTL) was developed for both solution and vacuum based processes, and an HTL-free structure with printed back contact was modeled for solution-based deposition. The environmental impact of conventional Si PV technology was used as a reference point. The environmental impacts from manufacturing of perovskite solar cells were lower than that of mono-Si. However, environmental impacts from unit electricity generated were higher than all commercial PV technology mainly because of the shorter lifetime of perovskite solar cell. The HTL-free perovskite generally had the lowest environmental impacts among the three structures studied. Solution based methods used in perovskite deposition were observed to decrease the overall electricity consumption. Organic materials used for preparing the precursors for perovskite deposition were found to cause a high marine eutrophication impact. Surprisingly, the toxicity impacts of the lead used in the formation of the absorber layer were found to be negligible. Chapter three addresses the life cycle toxicity of metals (cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, tin and zinc) that are commonly used in emerging PVs. In estimating the potential metal release, a new model that incorporates field conditions (crack size, time, glass thickness) and phy (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Defne Apul (Committee Chair); Michael Heben (Committee Member); Randall Ellingson (Committee Member); Constance Schall (Committee Member); Cyndee Gruden (Committee Member); Kumar Ashok (Committee Member) Subjects: Energy; Environmental Engineering

MS, Kent State University, 2018, College of Architecture and Environmental Design

In the recent decade, using vegetation to cover the building envelope is considered as a sustainable construction practice. Green Wall Systems (GWS) are built with multiple layers which are cladded on the bare wall, using different construction materials and a variety of plants, depending on the geographical locations and climatic conditions. However, the complex cladding devices, built using many processed materials, are reported to have high Embodied Energy (EE) and Embodied Carbon (EC), which questions the sustainability of the GWS. Hence, the research focuses on eliminating the multiple layers by designing a new innovative Integrated Green Wall System (IGWS) to reduce the environmental burden associated with GWS. Further, to improve the sustainability of IGWS, the recycling and reuse potential of millions of cubic yards of sediments, dredged to maintain the economic viability of the great lakes, is investigated by fabricating eco-friendly Dredged Material - Cement Bricks (DMCB). Here, the DMCB is formulated using different experimental mixture designs that vary in the cement content (8%, 10% and 12% by weight) and compacted with different compaction pressures (0Mpa, 2Mpa and 4Mpa). Then, the mechanical properties of the DMCB are investigated by performing a compression strength test, water absorption test and freeze-thaw test as specified by ASTM standards. The promising test results demonstrated that a brick with high performance could be produced using the dredge material. Later, a prototype of IGWS is proposed using DMCB. In addition, life cycle assessment performed to evaluate the environmental impacts of IGWS made of DMCB demonstrated 56% and 72.62% reductions in environmental burden profile in comparison with conventional indirect GWS and modular GWS respectively. Moreover, a reduction in environmental profile of 62.67% and 38.99% was observed, when the bare wall (made of clay bricks) in the tradition indirect and modular GWS was replaced with DMCB.

Committee: Rui Liu Dr. (Advisor); Reid Coffman Dr. (Advisor); Adil Sharag-Eldin Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architectural; Architecture; Conservation; Design; Ecology; Energy; Landscape Architecture; Materials Science; Sustainability; Urban Planning

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2018, Chemical Engineering

As the energy related activities turn out to be the “culprits” for CO2 emissions, the post combustion capture (PCC) technology has been regarded as a potential solution for carbon footprint mitigation. For this purpose, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been regarded to provide opportunities as a more energy-efficient alternative to the conventional sorbent e.g. monoethanolamine owing to its high selectivity for CO2 and hydrothermal stability. In recent decades, efforts have been focused on two perspectives: cutting down the energy use per adsorption cycle and enhancing the working capacity. Thus, most of current researchers have defined their system boundary by only incorporating the adsorption and desorption phase. Within this study, a comprehensive life cycle model is developed to capture the overall environmental impacts of which does include the manufacturing, adsorption, desorption, and compression phase. To provide a systematic guide for material engineers, chemical engineers or even policy makers, different types of MOFs are considered and modelled in terms of various impact categories. In this study, we found that using MOF-74s as CO2 sorbents is more attractive than other MOFs that were analyzed such as ZIF-79, ZIF-81, PPN-6-DETA. To reduce the life cycle environmental impacts of MOFs, we investigated a series of factors at three levels: parameters, unit processes, and reaction stages. From each of them, we identified several contributors to the overall environmental impacts. In the case of unit process, several candidates of precursors were identified based on a hotspot analysis. Besides, use of dimethylformamide (DMF) was also found to contribute to the high life cycle impact, so seeking alternatives or improving efficiency of use are needed. Combining conventional LCA with machine learning (ML) yielded some preliminary heuristics for sustainable design of MOFs that have a smaller life cycle impact. One such heuristic is that MOFs with parasitic ener (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Bhavik Bakshi (Advisor) Subjects: Chemical Engineering

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2017, Engineering and Applied Science: Civil Engineering

Today most structures are developed from huge number of materials, each with a particular function and complex assembly requirement (Crisman, 2017). All these materials which are used to create a building, are responsible for a large amount of global energy consumption, both in the form of embodied energy and operational energy. Until recently, it was believed that embodied energy formed a very small percentage of energy consumption as opposed to the operational energy over the life span of the building. But, Sartori et.al 2007 in their study presented that the embodied energy of a conventional building is up to 38% of the life cycle energy use. This implies that material selection plays a crucial role in reducing the overall environmental impact of the building. The material and resource (MR) category of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) rating system aims at reducing the embodied energy of the building through a life cycle approach. But even after five years of the launch, v4.0 certified projects scored a lesser average point than v3.0 certified projects. This research aims at providing a roadmap and a compendium of resources to the architects and sustainability consultants to help achieve more points in the MR category of LEED. To do so, points scored by certified projects were analyzed. This revealed that construction and demolition waste management credit was the most popular credit. On the other hand, credit involving building and material reuse were rarely pursued. Secondly, a web questionnaire survey to understand the credit compliance pattern in v4.0 and those which lacks clarity towards achieving compliance. The survey revealed that the whole building life cycle assessment (WBLCA) compliance path is likely going to be the most popular compliance path under the MR credit building life cycle impact assessment for new construction projects but none of the certified new construction projects scored points by pursuing WBLCA. This lead to the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Hazem Elzarka Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Anton Harfmann M.Arch. (Committee Member); Julian Wang Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Civil Engineering

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2017, Environmental Studies (Voinovich)

Ohio University demands over 120,000 Megawatt Hours of electricity annually and plans to reduce the institutional greenhouse gas emissions to 0 by 2075. The demand for electricity includes a significant environmental footprint under the current electricity procurement contract. Addressing the best option for an energy user therefore requires careful examination of the environmental, social, and financial costs and benefits of each scenario. This research develops optimal scenarios for a solar PV installation in Athens, OH and assesses the sustainability of four solar PV installation scenarios and two status quo scenarios. Finally, Analytical hierarchy process is used to simulate decision making process with multiple criteria. The criteria are categorized as environmental, social, and financial and decisions are simulated with three sets of weighting on each criterion. A solar installation helps verify modeled results within the research which concludes that a solar PV farm with tracking or rooftop would serve as the most sustainable electricity procurement decision for OHIO University.

Committee: Derek Kauneckis Ph. D (Advisor); Daniel Karney Ph. D (Committee Member); Greg Kremer Ph. D (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Management; Environmental Studies; Sustainability