Labs & Resources

The Department currently has eleven equivalent full-time faculty members. In addition, there are three research faculty members associated with the program as well as ten cooperating faculty members from the Department of Environmental Sciences.

Given the most recent projection that the UCR campus is to increase its enrollment to approximately 25,000 by the year 2010, more than 350 new FTE faculty are expected for the campus as a whole. The College of Engineering is expected to grow at a faster rate than the campus average. Thus, the next ten years will provide a tremendous opportunity for the College of Engineering and the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering to develop its programs.

The CEE program is housed in the recently opened $41 million, 105,000 square-foot modern engineering complex, Bourns Hall. The building won an Honor Award for Architecture from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1996. In Bourns Hall, the CEE program occupies 2,000 square feet of teaching lab space, 8,500 square feet of research lab space, and 1,600 square feet of computing lab space. As the number of faculty and the number of course offerings with laboratories increase, the administration has stated that the space needs of additional faculty will be met. A second engineering building is in the planning stages with construction initiation anticipated within the next five years.

UCR opened a new $29.7 million, four-story 106,000 square-foot Science Library in Fall 1998. The engineering collection is housed in the new library which is located next to Bourns Hall. The new library has 1,500 reader and computer stations, with over one million volumes in science and engineering, and hundreds of data base and on-line information sources. The Library has also recently hired an Engineering Librarian with special training in information technology to assist the engineering faculty and students.

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Environmental Engineering Laboratory

Particulate Processes Laboratory: Research in this laboratory focuses on solid/solid and water/solid interactions related to colloidal particle kinetics, colloidal particle transport and adsorption phenomena. The laboratory is also developing process control systems for particulate removal unit processes. This 1,200 square-foot laboratory, which includes a 100 square-foot Class 100 clean room, is currently equipped with an Autocorrelation Photon Spectroscopy Instrument (Brookhaven Instruments, Holtsville, NY) equipped with an Lexel 95 Argon laser (Lexel Laser, Fremont, CA) and a Coulter Multisizer II with associated computer controls for particle aggregation/disaggregation, flocculation and separations application studies.

Environmental Processes and Control Laboratory: This 2,800 square-foot facility is currently equipped with total organic carbon analyzer (both solid and liquid samples) (Shimadzu TOC-5050, Columbia, MD), Atomic Absorption Flame Emission Spectrophotometer for metals analysis (Shimadzu AA-6701) and gas chromatograph with mass spectrometer for the determination and speciation of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds (Shimadzu GC-17A and QD-5000, respectively). An ICP-OES system, housed in Pierce Hall, is jointly shared with the Department of Environmental Sciences for simultaneous multiple ion analysis. In addition, there are number of apparatuses for soil testing including expansion testing, permeability, particle sizing, and other traditional engineering properties of soils. Research in this laboratory focuses on water and soil remediation, treatment process control and developing new technologies for contaminant destruction, containment and control. A 400 square-foot area is reserved for larger bench-scale laboratory studies and pilot plant studies.

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Biofiltration Laboratory

This 1,200 square-foot laboratory is devoted to research on the biological treatment of contaminated waste air and biodegradation of xenobiotics. The laboratory is outfitted with two pilot-scale biofiltration column reactors. Gas analyses are automatically performed on-line using gas chromatograph (HP 5890 Series II Plus) equipped with a 10 port valve, 16 streams selection valve, and TCD and FID detectors. A second gas chromatograph (HP 6890), with FID and ECD detectors, complete with automatic sampler, allows for rapid analysis. All processes and instrumentation are PC controlled.

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Biosensors Laboratory

This laboratory supports research on biosensors. A number of sensors are being developed for biotechnological, medical and environmental monitoring and control applications. The laboratory is equipped with a dual beam multi-cell UV/Vis spectrophotometer (Cary 1E, Australia), an HPLC with UV and refractive index detectors (Shimadzu, Columbia, MD), two electrochemical stations for cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, and chronocoulometry studies (Princeton Applied Research, Princeton, NJ and Bioanalytical Systems, West Lafayette, IN). Flow injection analyzers with amperometric detectors (Bioanalytical Systems), ELISA plate reader, and a fiber-optic arrangement for the development of fiber-optic signal transduction from biosensors, and tissue culture reactor (New Brunswick Scientific, Edison, NJ) complete the current major equipment inventory. All instrumentation, where possible, is interfaced with computer controls for automatic control, data storage and data manipulation.

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Biochemical Engineering Laboratory

This 1,200 square-foot laboratory is devoted to the study and characterization of proteins, cells, and DNA for possible use in controlled biodegradation of xenobiotic compounds. The laboratory is equipped with incubators-shakers, 2.5 L fermentor with pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, agitation and feed controls (New Brunswick Scientific, Edison, NJ), a PCR thermocycler (M.J. Research, Watertown, MA) and a french press. Instrumentation for analysis and speciation include gel-electrophoresis and UV-Vis spectrophotometer (Beckman Instruments, DU 640).

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Air Quality Laboratories

The air quality laboratory facilities are associated the College of Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT)and the Air Pollution Research Center (APRC). Descriptions of these facilities are as follows.

CE-CERT is a center for collaborative research by university, industry, and regulatory agencies on environmental problems. Founded in 1992, CE-CERT is housed in a 36,000 square-foot office and laboratory complex located two miles from the UCR campus in an industrial park. The laboratories at CE-CERT have been designed and developed to address air pollution and technology issues. Primary laboratories at CE-CERT include an atmospheric processes laboratory, vehicle emissions research laboratory, advanced vehicle engineering laboratory, environmental modeling laboratory, pollutant analysis laboratory, and stationary source evaluation laboratory. Each of these laboratories is a state-of-the-art test facility, and a number of the labs, especially the vehicle emissions research laboratory, contain equipment which is unique to a university research facility.

The APRC research labs are housed in the Fawcett Lab on the UCR campus. The atmospheric chemistry group at APRC has four large volume (6000-8000 liter each) chambers for kinetic and product studies, with product analyses by gas chromatography (with flame ionization, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and mass spectrometric detection), in situ FT-IR absorption spectroscopy, and a PE SCIEX API MS/MS direct air sampling, atmospheric pressure ionization tandem mass spectrometer. Equipment for plant sciences research includes a greenhouse with continuous stirred flow Teflon chambers and computer controlled fumigation capabilities.

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