Emily's Notebook

Spring 2021 (2nd Semester)

Week One

VIP Group Meeting (1/19/2021)

-Introductions and subgroup presentations

-Interested in Liquid Waste Nitrification, Air quality, and greywater.

Week Two

VIP Group Meeting (1/26/2021)

-Subgroup Decision & Subgroup Breakout (Liquid Waste Nitrification)

- Set group meeting time for Sunday at 12:00 PM on Bluejeans

- Possibly with hold experiment in Kendeda VIP lab or Ecology lab.

- Semester goal: scale up last semester's experiment

Sunday Meeting (1/31/2021)

-Prepped for this week's presentation

- Updated/edited Google Slides presentation

- Got access to Google drive/one note

-Brought up future questions:

Budget for this semester?
Need to complete Lab safety 101, RTK, Biosafety

-Future Goals:

Determine a regular meeting time

Tuesday (2/2/2021) - Finished Lab safety 101, RTK, and General Biosafety trainings

Week Three

VIP Group Meeting (2/2/2021)

- Weekly Presentations - first presentation! -

-Presented our past achievements and future goals/ plans for this semester

- Feedback

- Budget= $125

- consider other factors that would affect the metabolism of the bacteria to make it more efficient

- consider community of microorganisms found in the system

- campus is a small sample

- see if there is existing literature on conditions of community

- vary variables like temperature, level of bubbles etc.

- cannot use real waste still, due to COVID protocols

- Because team is so large, consider scaling up even more/ doing two groups

- Materials

- 500 gallon plastic tub because leachate tank is plastic

- last semester supplies in a stock room in Boggs

- get access to Kendeda

Post Tuesday Response Meeting (2/5/2021)

- Semester Goals

- Finish research paper

- use a larger scale tank for experiment to better mimic leachate tank

- Preform lit review on Phosphate use in the nitrification process

- Get Phase III proposal approved

- Create a materials list.

- determine size of tank needed for statistically significant results.

Week Four

VIP Group Meeting (2/9/2021)

- We did not present this week

Mini Group Meeting (9/12/2020)

- Long Term Goal: engineer a redesign of the current waste management system in the Kendeda Building

Currently, just a plastic tub,
Want to propose a R&D

- Short Term

w/in a month (March 1st) Project Proposal
Design set up, standard procedure, materials list, operating cost list
< $250

- Phase III

Per Dr. Glass recommendation, we are looking into phosphate extraction, as it is in high demand but low supply
there are natural phosphates in liquid waste and if we can extract them
- makes our process economically favorable, which will incentivize its use.
Sub teams
- Project Proposal: Maria and Shalini
- Phosphate and general Research: Mia, Sam and myself
Goals
- investigate phosphate cycle as phosphate is extracted through crystallization and erosion, we want to streamline if possible
- find a way to manage pH as phosphate is accepts hydrogens from the water to stabilize itself
- need buffer?
- Create a comprehensive list of acid base reactions, catalysts etc. done by March
To do (me)
- determine who w/in sub team is going to be focused on phosphate and who will focus on general
- Email Dr. Glass

Week Five

VIP Group Meeting (2/16/2021)

-Presentation Day

- presented our phase III set up

- introduced our additional focus of the semester (Phosphate retrieval)

- explained how we broke team into two subteams

- budget shouldn't be an issue

- Questions from the panel

- where would we get the phosphorus from because it isn't present in our current solution of urea

- suggested we try animal manure (cow, elephant)

- Goals:

- get solidified materials list

- research phosphate retrieval and consider a experiment

- create an educational video

- enter VIP competition

Weekly Meetings: Friday's at 3:00 PM

Mini Group Meeting (2/19/2021)

- we calculated the materials needed for our scaled up experiment

-32.22 g TAPSO buffer

- 0.54 g Manure

- 110.76 g Urea

- we created a procedure

- 6 2L tubs

- 3 with just urea mixture, 3 with manure urea mixture

New Information:

- The sludge in the leachate tank is semi solid

- phosphate retrieval will be difficult, so continue with lit reviews

- We do not know the chemical makeup of the leachate tank

Questions for Leavey:

- Will we need a BSL 2 lab because we are working with cow manure?

Goals:

- Short term:

-Create phase III document by Monday, 22nd

- visit Kendeda building

- Long term:

- verify conclusions from Phases I and II

- eliminate errors in data from Phases I and II

- track the life cycles of the bacteria

- enter VIP competition

Sunday (2/21/2021)

Created and edited Phase III doc
Created Phase III operating procedure outline
Confirmed meeting time with Dr. Glass
Sent Phase III doc to Aravind and Maria to get suggestions

Week Six

VIP Group meeting (2/23/2021)

- We did not present today

- I did research on phosphate recovery based on Dr. Glass' suggestions and resources.

- Added to the lit review.

Subgroup Meeting (2/26/2021)

- I am now in the nitrification sub-team

We got a lot of research about phosphate retrieval done

- - - use MgCl and a stirred reactor to precipitate struvite

- best pH is between 8.5-10

- consider how this high pH will affect bacteria

Wrote and sent Leavey the Phase III document. Also sent Shalini's literature review.
made procedure outline
Formatted presentation for next week.

Week Seven

VIP Group meeting (3/2/2021)

- Weekly Presentation

gave presentation explaining the Phase III doc and our new research
Presented a possible experiment design for phosphate retrieval
TAPSO is ordered

FeedBack:

Talk to Dr. Grantham about phosphate precipitation
Talk to steve place about fertilizer economics

Lab Meeting (Friday 3/5/2021)

Sam informed us of the information that Dr. Grantham gave him.
We determined additional materials that we'd need
- strainer-- home depot
- 64+ oz plastic containers--ikea
- aluminum foil-- Kroger
- Maria and Shalini went to kendeda (we have access via backdoor)
  - couldn't find prep room with materials
  - put the supplies that could be found in Kendeda 280
We got information about phosphate precipitation from Dr. Tang
Hoping to get in the lab in one week.
Emailed Marlon Ellis (Kendeda Manager) about separation of waste and content of foam
- foam is from Clivus Multrum
Goals
- Create a spreadsheet of lab assignments.

Week Eight

VIP Group meeting (3/9/2021)

We did not present this week
Asked Leavey if she could order manure, paint strainer, and containers
- got black 1 gal containers so we don't need aluminum
Rest of supplies are in Kendeda now
Goals:
- Get in Lab next week
- finish lab schedule

Mini Group Meeting (3/12/2021)

Mia and I went to Kendeda and got a tour from Mr. Ellis
Picked up soap sample (need more)
Learned that waste gets transported with the help of gravity through pipes to clivus composters
once in the composter, woodchips are added and the solid waste decomposed (over ten years)
this mixture of liquid and solid waste is strained and pumped into the leachate tanks
once over 3/4 full (1000 gallon) waste management service in Cartersville picks it up and recycles its nutrients

Week Nine

VIP Group meeting (3/16/2021)

- Wellness day so no class

Material gathering (3/20/2021)

Maria and I gathered all the materials to start the experiment
created the urea solution and put the manure samples into the respective beakers.

Week Ten

Mini Group Meeting (3/22/2021)

day 0, calibrated probes and completed VIP video
added buffer solution

VIP Group meeting (3/23/2021)

Presented findings from tour
explained Phase III experimental set-up group
updated on phosphate research

Continue ever other day measurements (3/24/2021)

Shalini and I took measurements
Still concerned about how pH is affected by the soap

Continue every other day measurements (3/26/2021)

Meet with Tang
Confirmed our previous findings
She suggested that we consider incubation of some sort

Week Eleven

VIP Group Meeting (3/30/2021)

did not present this week

Week Eleven Subgroup meeting (4/2/2021)

-*began our experiment (without bacteria or bubblers)

having a difficult time calibrating our nitrate and ammonium probes

Week Twelve

VIP Group Meeting (4/6/2021)

Presented this week, explained our issues (bubblers creating foam in beakers with soap)
Dr. Grantham suggested magnetic stir bars and plates because it will still oxygenate but without all the excess foam
Ph is raised significantly by the addition of soap (makes sense since soap is a base)

Week Thirteen

VIP Group Meeting (4/13/2021)

-Weekly Presentation

did not present this week
in smaller group, we discussed the issues with our probes (it appears despite length or redundancy of calibrations, readings are off)
discussed the process for the rest of the experimentation
should be done next week and can start compiling data

-

Weekly Meeting

* met to discuss VIP competition

analyzed data from trial
discussed shortcomings of the trial/ ideas for the future
created our final presentation

Week Fourteen

VIP Group Meeting (4/20/2021)

final presentations
gave a breakdown of the background of our experiment
explained our process
communicated our findings from this phase
pH increases with soap (base) but all pH are generally stable enough for nitrification to occur
pH increases over course of reaction
Irregularities with ammonium probe inhibited further data comparison as ammonium concentration helps provide context for the course of reaction

Week Fifteen

VIP Group Meeting (5/4/2021)

- we did not present - we won third place for our poster - we won first place (and $1000) for our project in the people and environment category.