Fermentation-derived sources are potential alternatives to traditional chemical methodologies. Fermentation offers green and sustainable alternatives that generate less waste and use less hazardous materials, often resulting in environmentally friendly options. This process design takes a fermentation broth containing lactic acid, ethyl lactate, water, ethanol, and other byproducts and undergoes series of reactions and purifications to obtain food-grade lactic acid. A complete heat and material balance was completed for the process, including a thorough Degrees of Freedom analysis for each unit operation. Ultimately this plant design has the capacity to produce approximately 4,310,000 lbs of lactic acid per year with a purity of 97.79 mole percent. This was calculated in MATLAB and Aspen Plus V11, allowing for the comparison of specific assumptions and some design considerations. This work was based upon “Conceptual Design and Scale Up of Lactic Acid Production from Fermentation-Derived Magnesium Lactate” by Daengpradab and Rattanaphanee (2018) which utilized process intensification via reactive distillation. A different modeling approach was utilized by separating the reactive distillation into a continuously stirred tank reactor followed by traditional distillation. Additional considerations in this design include solubility issues in separation, reactor kinetics, and quaternary distillation utilizing non-ideal parameters. Optimization, economic analysis, and process safety management were also explored for this process.

The extensive use of diesel fuels in the transportation and energy sectors causes high production demand. Biodiesel is an alternative to diesel derived from fossil fuels, reducing the demand on the limited remaining global reserves. However, the production of biodiesel has associated environmental issues, low production capacity and labor intensive. There is an immediate need for an environmentally friendly process for alternative biodiesel production that is both competitive and economical viable on an industrial scale. The proposed novel biodiesel production facility eliminates the use of caustic feed stocks and high salt brine, reducing cost and environmental impact while improving overall safety. Biodiesel, chemically identified as Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME), can be produced from waste canola oil (WCO), as a sustainable feedstock, by a proposed concurrent dual reaction pathway catalyzed by the ionic products of electrochemical water dissociation of water. Water is to be electrochemically dissociated into proton and hydroxide ions separated by a solid electrolyte membrane, for acid- and alkali-catalyzed transesterification of WCO, respectively. Further, by designating the chemical reaction scheme to be dependent on water dissociation, alkali and acid catalysis can be readily achieved while eliminating the saponification side reaction of free fatty acids (FFA). Coupling such pathways in a co-current parallel configuration through hybridized organic electro-synthetic techniques is in its naissance and serves as an added novelty to the reactor design, fit to compete with standardized FAME production strategies. The primary operation in the production of biodiesel is centered around the electrocatalytic reactor (ECR). The ECR is a series of electrochemical flow cells, in which the cells can be emulated as a Plug Flow Reactor (PFR) in which an inherent concentration gradient exists along the span of connected cells. The proposed novel biodiesel production facility is projected to convert 90 million gallons per year of waste canola oil (WCO) by electrochemical conversion into 75 million gallons of biodiesel and 3.2 million gallons of glycerol (GLY) commodity products.

Key Words:

Electrocatalytic Reactor, Biodiesel Production, Organic Electrosynthesis, Transesterification, FAME, Sustainability, Biofuel Production Strategies, Transesterification Catalysis

Insulin production is a global concern, especially in the United States, due to its increasing demand and high price. Therefore, an innovative and effective design of a Human Insulin Production Process was explored to provide the opportunity to fill a need in the market with more affordable pharmaceutical products, and to provide a corresponding potential for profits serving the needs of individuals. The production process was simplified to focus on six main unit operations including a fermentor, centrifuge, CNBr reactor, enzymatic conversion unit, a diafilter, and a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) unit. The purpose of the process is to produce medical-grade insulin for human use. This will be accomplished through expressing an insulin precursor (Trp-LE’-Met proinsulin) in an E. coli expression system. The Trp-LE’-Met signal peptide will be cleaved through CNBr cleavage and enzymatic digestion will accomplish C-peptide cleavage ultimately producing mature insulin. A final purification step will ensure that this insulin is prepared before being introduced into the market. Several design specifications and optimization considerations were developed within the fermentor to reduce power consumption, therefore reducing in overall operating cost. A process flow diagram (PFD) along with completed tables of heat and material balance were produced to provide insight for later sizing and specifications. Economic analysis and safety practice are also established to ensure that the plant is operating at its maximum capacity with efficient outcomes while conducting underneath a safe and sustainable environment.

The Space Technologies Team at Tennessee Technological University conducted work that included designing a pilot plant for silicon metal and oxygen extraction that will help determine the viability of building a process plant on the moon.  Human space exploration has been limited to only the moon and the space in between it and the earth because of the intense amount of effort space operations require.  For longer and further space exploration, such as the colonization of Mars, to occur, a sustainable method of creating necessary materials needs to be developed.  For an off-earth outpost to be constructed, there needs to be utilization of in situ conversion of raw materials into things such as construction materials and breathable air. This project lays out a future process plant design that converts lunar regolith into oxygen and metals such as silicon, aluminum, iron, and more using fluorine reduction; however, the process is too extensive to model all at once in this project.  A pilot test plant that converts silicon dioxide into silicon metal and oxygen is fully modeled instead, with full heat and material balance tables listed.  The economic and optimization aspects of the project are also presented, showing that although this test plant will be in the negative, it is crucial to design and construct in order to start modeling more ambitious plants off planet. 

Hydrogen production is necessary due to its high demand in the annealing process of steel production at Powder Metal Corporation. The steam reformer currently in place sufficiently meets the flow and purity requirements of the hydrogen but creates byproducts of carbon ioxide and carbon monoxide that are released into the atmosphere as greenhouse gasses, contributing to the threat of global warming. We are proposing a wasteless, natural gas gasification process with plasma torches to create the hydrogen gas needed for the steel production process on site. Hydrogen gas production by natural gas pyrolysis, or a plasma reformer, is a newer method of producing hydrogen without creating carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide as byproducts. With this issue becoming a major problem globally, creating a process that does not contribute to greenhouse gas release is our main objective. The proposed process efficiently produces hydrogen gas in a low emission manner from natural gas. This is important, not only for the health of the environment but for Powder Metal Corporation as well. The proposed process will grant the company a relief from the carbon tax, a tax on the amount of carbon dioxide released from the plant, making the process more profitable based on the amount of money it will save.

The purpose of this project is the structural and civil site design for an office complex in Huntsville for LogiCore, a company that delivers important services to the US Government and commercial clients within and outside the United States. The Huntsville office will serve as LogiCore’s Corporate headquarters. The scope of the project includes design of roads to provide vehicular access to the two office buildings and parking areas, water and sanitary sewer lines to the site, identification and completion of environmental permits required, structural design of the primary office building which consists of a two-story structural steel structure.

The purpose of this project is to replace a structurally insufficient bridge over the Buffalo River in Perry County, TN. As of 2020, Perry County was classified as one of 15 distressed counties in Tennessee and in the 10% of most economically distressed counties in the nation. The existing bridge-structure is a 31-span steel girder bridge with a sufficiency rating of 41.0. During construction of the proposed roadway alignment and bridge-structure, all traffic on the on the existing route must be maintained. The project scope includes roadway alignment design, a traffic control plan, hydraulic analysis, permitting, erosion control design, and structural design of bridge.

The purpose of this project is to design the civil engineering infrastructure for a proposed mixed-use development. The client requests the development of design documents for the infrastructure. Specific objectives of the project include the design of related access roadways, the design of a bridge over railroad tracks that complies with CSX clearance criteria, the design of retaining walls, storm drainage design for collection and conveyance to outfall points, and low impact design (water quality).

The purpose of this project is to design approximately 2640 feet of roadway widening and shared use path along Old Lebanon Dirt Road from Chandler Road to Paige Drive in Wilson County, Tennessee to address the high frequency of crashes on the existing facility, heavy traffic volumes, and frequent flooding in the area. Specifics of the project include widening the existing two-lane roadway to include a two-way left turn lane to increase safety along the corridor while increasing traffic flow, and redesign of the box culvert over Lick Creek which frequently overtops. An important consideration in the road-widening are the utility-lines that are prevalent in the corridor that may have to relocated.

This project addresses the design of a new stretch of I-69 that will need to tie into an existing road on either end of the project-road and will cross three major roads namely, Wolverine Rd., Troy Polk Station Rd., and R. Calloway Rd. with the crossing at Troy Polk Station Rd. requiring an interchange. The interchange with I-69 and Troy Polk Station Rd. will need to be designed to handle future traffic volumes and speeds safely and efficiently. Specifics of the project include roadway geometric design, design of box culverts and cross-drains, structural design of bridges, culverts, and retaining walls; identification of any special requirements for protection of any environmentally sensitive areas, and identification of any permits required from federal, state, or local agencies.

In this project, the client requires the construction of a new nominal 12-million gallons per day (MGD) water treatment plant (WTP) with capabilities for future expansion to 36 MGD. The new and existing water treatment plants are located in Clarksville, Tennessee. The project requirements include the design of the Sludge Thickening Basins of the plant and the structural design of the Solids Handling building, which is a 2-story concrete structure that will sit on a pile cap foundation system with micropiles. The project team is also to address Construction Management elements that include materials take-off for piping, concrete, and equipment; construction sequencing of the build of the solids thickening basins and solids handling building; and construction phasing and schedule.

For A.O. Smith customers who seek to obtain more control over the function of their water heaters. The Alexa Integration system is software that allows users to issue commands to their water heaters, obtain information from their water heaters, and receive indications of the status of their water heaters using Alexa as a mediator. Unlike a phone app, this solution allows users to control their water heaters using solely their voice.

For the visitors of the Tennessee State Park who wish to better visualize and have self-guided tours of the sites in the park. The Tennessee State Park guide application is a tool that provides a better visitor experience by providing a better view of the sites and in-depth information that would normally be provided by a park ranger. Unlike other parks that have information boards and rangers to guide visitors, this solution provides visitors with new experiences in the park while still providing the information a ranger would provide.

This application acts as a bridge that allows the production application to, in real-time, assemble information that the model needs to reach a decision, make a call to the model using the assembled data, and return back the ‘decision’ from the model. The system is also robust in relation to error handling, so that the production application is unaffected.

For the business development team who need a better way to examine and sort through federal requests for proposals (RFPs). The capture dash system is an analysis and sorting system that analyses RFPs and tags it with certain attributes based on what kind of project it is. Users can then sort by these tags to find RFPs with specific attributes rather than humans reading through each RFP and determining what kind of project it is. Capture dash allows the business development managers at SAIC to focus on project cultivation rather than having to digest a huge amount of federal paperwork.

For County School Teachers who need extra resources or are willing to offer their extra resources to assist in need teachers. The UC (Upper Cumberland) Edunet is a website that will let teachers in rural counties trade resources with each other to better teach their students. Unlike Amazon Inspire and other resource trading programs, this solution will let teachers share texts and other resources with other local teachers across counties at little to no cost.

For Predisan who is looking for an updated and deployed user interface that can organize and connect to their database. The programming team is releasing the CEREPA server, and then making a similar system for their other clinical facility, The Good Samaritan Clinic, which allows them to digitize their paper records. Our solution connects the Softland and Bahmni, deployed systems at CEREPA, pilot it at the Good Samaritan Clinic, and implement a proper backup system.

A web application that compiles map and shipment data to display routes along which empty trucks commonly traverse. The application features a single page displaying an empty map in which the user can alter the map via uploading comma-delimited (CSV) file formatted files. The application displays many different map types (map tools) including the currently existing freight tool. Along with just displaying the desired map data, an Averitt employee will be able to output (in the form of a PDF) the map that is being displayed. Additional features include zooming in, other forms of output, map settings like turning off arrows, and ensuring that the web application meets Averitt’s styling standards.

For Urban Science employees who seek an easy to use interface for a model visualization. This is a tool that helps the employees understand the data more by applying a visual aspect to the data. Unlike how their data now can be very cluttered and number driven, this solution is more visual and improves the ease of understanding the data. This is accomplished by building an interface to submit data, selecting what model to run the data through, and then outputting data in an easy to read and aesthetically pleasing format.

For poverty-stricken people around the world who need to be connected with educational resources. The Opportunity Connector platform is a web application that provides a space for content providers to share their free content to people outside their normal reach. Unlike others, we allow people to upload resources to a single platform. Our solution focuses on educating and providing for the underprivileged, in order to close the gap between the developed and developing world.

For healthcare workers who want to provide better, quicker, and easier care for their patients. The app/web interface is a medical tool that will allow healthcare workers to look at all their patients’ medical data in one spot and will send them notifications when a patient is about to code. They can also simply view the data to make their own observations that might not be provided by the app. Unlike the current EHR system, our solution provides software that makes this essential part of healthcare easier for the actual providers.

For Cru, who wants the ability to cater articles to their viewers more effectively, the Recommender System is a targeted way to find what the reader will find most appealing that considers their current interest based off what they have read and finds similar topics within the database. Unlike other recommender systems, this is specialized for Cru’s use in their faith-based articles. Our solution is a scoring system using the percentage of similarity between articles and the tag system for each article to generate an accurate article recommendation for readers.

For ORNL employees, industrial personnel, and the general public requiring historical climatological data, this tool provides a simple interface to retrieve historical climate data for a specific time frame and location specified by the user. Unlike other climate data retrieval solutions, our tool combines an easy-to-use interface with customization and an average turnaround time of seconds rather than hours..

There is a need for soundproof mats in semi-trucks. This project discusses the quality and the amount of production by adding another table or two. This includes design and time study data. This project's goal is to increase quality and productivity by redesigning the layout of the work areas and to get data from our own time study.

There is a need for a Rack that can transport several kayaks from their upright position in

storage racks to a horizontal position in the transport truck. The kayaks must go through 2 loading bay

doors having approximately 12 and 10 feet of clearance respectively. Transportation of the kayaks

must be fast and efficient by use of 2 warehouse workers. Kayak rack must be safe and must hold

kayaks securely. Kayak rack must hold up to 750 lbs with Kayaks up to 16 ft in length.

In the manufacturing environment, pressure monitoring systems are necessary. A pressure warning system has never been installed on the injection molding machine at Iris Plastics. This project will discuss the execution of a pressure monitoring warning system. The data includes: subsystem testing, design information, and performance data. At Iris Plastics, the project's goal is to develop a system to warn operators when unwanted pressures occur in the injection molding machine. In this project we will use a circuit system and Wi-Fi version of the Arduino Mega to send data to operators of the injection molding machine.

Royal Oak has a need to convey sawdust across the factory from different locations. They receive Sawdust from multiple vendors and currently do not have a way to filter out oversized items that are hidden within the sawdust upon delivery. This project's goal is to introduce a hammer mill to Royal Oak's current system to be able to filter out oversized items and to grind them down to useable pieces while also relocating some of the current systems in the same area for optimal loading of raw materials.

This project is to improve upon a working prototype that produces hydrogen to power a low-speed vehicle such as a golf cart. This project utilizes the process of electrolysis to separate a water and sodium hydroxide mixture into hydrogen and oxygen. The electrolysis will take advantage of multiple production cells to actively adapt to variable power input from renewable sources like wind and solar, enabling near constant production. After separating the hydrogen and oxygen, the team will utilize the hydrogen and oxygen by injecting it into a generator to increase the efficiency of the combustion process, improving overall fuel efficiency. This generated energy can then be used to power small vehicles and equipment.

Recently Tennessee Tech has built a cupola furnace, which will be used to melt and cast iron in Tech’s foundry, and for this process the cupola requires coke ore as a source of fuel. Currently, a local company that has cupolas much larger than the one that will be used at Tennessee Tech, is supplying all the coke ore needed for the new furnace. However, the pieces that are donated are much too large for the small furnace that was built. To mitigate this, students take the large pieces and break them down by hand, using a hammer and chisel. This is an inefficient way to break down the pieces, so the goal of this project is to begin automating the coke crushing process which will allow the MET Department to consistently produce the desired size of coke ore needed. Additionally, the benefit of automating this process is that it will allow the production of a suitable batch of coke to be timed and adjusted for demand.

The cupola project provides Tennessee Tech University with an educational asset that can be used to melt iron and familiarize students with an important and integral aspect of the foundry manufacturing processes. This cupola provides students in the Manufacturing and Engineering Technology school of Engineering with hands-on experience with the operation of running a cupola. Testing over the course of last semester, fall 2021, deemed the cupola not suitable for operation in the foundry. The goal of this project is to bring the cupola to operational standards so that it can be used for casting, as well as preparing it for educational purposes for classes such as metallurgy.