Everyday I'm Shufflin'

The past couple of days have been packed with more events inside and outside the classroom. On Monday we had class with guest lecturer Stefano Milia who taught us about his work iwth remediation of contaminated sites. I leaerned a lot about the different kinds of sources of contamination and how asses the situation to choose the appropriate technology. I learned as well that infact many companies like to just put physical barriers instead of actually remediating the contaminated sites because it is easier and more cost effective. A common type of barrier is a insitu (on site) permeable reactive barrier which is semipermeable and lets the water flow through but blocks the contaminants. We also did some basic calculations-it was interesting to see chemical equations applied in a civil engineering soil treatment context. Afterwards we worked on the project and had some time to explore the botanical gardens near by. The garden was beautiful and very relaxing after a studious day.

The next day we spent the day sailing the first half of the day and then relaxing on the beach. This was my first time sailing so it was cool to see how sail boats work. There's a lot of logic that's intuitive from physics and general common sense. What's more fun that physics and being on the water? Trick question: nothing. Though there were many experienced sailors on my boat and I was one of the more useless crew members, it was a good time. We almost hit a boat while on a journey to retrieve a fender, but we just escaped and had a thrilling sailing adventure. Afterwards, we continued to enjoy the warm water on the beach. Unfortunately I did not take many pictures but here is two of of the beach. The water is so clear I still can't believe it. It is going to be a sad day trying to get used to the seaweed and gunk in the Atlantic. 

Today, we went to the anaerobic digestion plant and were able to learn about their process for harvesting organic waste as well as their other plants where they landfill, compost, and harness solar and wind energy. There are two types of anaerobic digestion; wet and dry. The wet digestion involves first a hydro pulper, then a hydro cyclone to purify the organic slurry. The dry digestion involves a rotating trummel screen to filter the organic fraction and an electromagnet to remove the iron scraps. The remaining organic portions are put through centrifuges to retrieve liquid discharges that are then put into the methanogenic reactors to result in biogas. The anaerobic plant uses the biogas produced to produce 2,263,623 kWh of energy, and consumes 526,912 kWh of energy in the harvesting process. It was interesting to hear about their potentials and how their budget prevents them from their full potential functionality. Here are a few pictures from walking around the plant.  

Afterwards we took a mini trip to the mountains to see a waterfall and soaked up some rays. Not pictured: me eating the picnic lunch before even arriving on site (oops).