MTU CENTER AWARDED $1 MILLION GRANT
HOUGHTON, MI--Michigan Tech has received an additional $1 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development to support ongoing research to assist industry in pollution prevention.
The grant provides funding for the University's National Center for Clean Industrial and Treatment Technologies (CenCITT) to pursue its goal of helping create industrial facilities where waste is minimized by applying economically sound technologies and a combination of optimized manufacturing processes, treatment operations, and reuse of materials. CenCITT is a research consortium which includes the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis, with Michigan Tech as the lead institution. It was established by an EPA grant in 1992.
CenCITT Director Dr. John Crittenden, a presidential professor in MTU's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said the latest EPA grant will be used to support 10 projects that will be carried out within the Center's four focus areas during the next two years.
"Eight of these projects will be conducted within our Clean Process Advisory System (CPAS) and Clean Reaction Technologies (CReaTe) focus areas," said Crittenden. "Within CPAS, the projects will concentrate on integrating, demonstrating, and disseminating technologies developed previously. These projects are especially promising as they build on many years of CenCITT research.
"Under CReaTe, the funded projects have great potential for developing green (environmental) chemical process technologies that start with waste product streams, low value feed stocks, or biologically produced chemicals. New technologies developed from previous CReaTe projects are already reaching the industrial community and working their way into the market."
Crittenden said one project will be carried out under CenCITT's Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing focus area. That effort, titled Product Environmental Index, will indicate the environmental impact due to the creation and dismantling of a mechanical product assembly--such as an automobile or aircraft. The project includes a high degree of industrial interaction, and will provide test cases to ratify the methodologies and software programs used.
One project will also be conducted under the Innovative Industrial Applications focus area. That project, said Crittenden, will develop an innovative process for recycling waste polymers generated by the lost foam technology used in the metal casting industry.
During the last seven years CenCITT has supported 75 collaborative projects which include 60 faculty and 200 student researchers from all fields of science and engineering with environmental and manufacturing interest and expertise. These projects have focused on researching better technology to meet environmental needs. for more information on CenCITT, visit their web site at http://cpas.mtu.edu/cencitt.
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04/26/99