FUNDAMENTALS OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROCESSES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course provides the basic knowledge on mass transfer processes of reacting chemicals and multicomponent phase equilibria useful for modelling environmental compartments and environmental interfaces. Applications are related to health risk assessment and environmental contamination.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The purpose of this course is to disseminate the basic principles and methods for modelling environmental processes, in order to solve simple problems related to the assessment of environmental contamination and health risk. Applications are about the reaction of chemicals in mixed and segregated volumes, repartition of pollutants into soil and groundwater, evaporation of liquid spills, filling /discharging of environmental compartments. Some basic concepts about health risk assessment are also given.

Attendance and active participation in the proposed training activities (lectures, exercises) and individual study will allow the student to:

- write mass and energy balances for reacting systems at macroscopic scale and apply them to environmental systems and processes;

- write constitutive equations for thermodynamic equilibrium and chemical kinetics and apply them to environmental systems and processes;

- Solve simple dynamic problems on environmental reacting systems  and processes.

TEACHING METHODS

The course provides lectures (with the help of slides provided by the teacher) and exercises/ laboratory activity.

Theoretical contents alternate exercises and case studies aimed at encouraging the learning and discussion of specific problems involving the use of different approaches to model the system under study.

Transversal competences as autonomy of judgment will be acquired during the solution of the case studies, to be carried out in a group, communication skills will be acquired during the discussion of case studies and oral examination.

The course is on-line, using the Teams platform. Lectures are recored and available to the students. Work groups are created on Teams platform and case studies are discussedindividually with each group.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

1. Introduction and definitions (5 hours)

• Main chemical-physical quantities and their units.
• Closed and open Environmental Systems (ES). Definition of the control volume and its boundaries.
• Physically based (mechanistic) models and phenomenological models.
• Scales of representation.
• Static and dynamic ES. Environmental Compartments (EC) and Environmental Interfaces (EI).

1. Constitutive equations (10 hours)

• Recalls on the first and second law of thermodynamics
• Chemical and phase equilibrium
• Chemical kinetics in homogeneous and heterogeneous ES.
• Chemical potential. G-L equilibrium. Raoult and Henry laws. L-L, L-S, G-S equilibrium.  Partition coefficients. Fugacity based models.
• Exercises and applications

1. Mass and energy balances for reacting ES (15 hours)

• Macroscopic scale: Filling, discharging, mixing, heating of reacting ES.
• Exercises and applications

1. Assessment of contamination and Environmental Risk (5 hours)

• Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA) and Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA).
• The main four steps of Environmental Risk Assessment.
• Definitions of sources, receptors, pathways, exposition routes and effects.
• Definition of Reference Dose and Slope factor;
• Hazard Index (HI), Hazard Quotient (HQ), Cancer Risk (CR)

1. Case studies (15 hours)

• Mixing of reacting chemicals in gas /liquid phase (macroscopic scale: dynamic models)
• Liquid spill of H-C in seawater/soil (phase equilibrium)
• Study of a chemical process: optimizing yield and  reducing pollution (mass and energy balances, reaction networks)

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Course handouts and slides supplied by the teacher (full bibliography is also contained)

R. Byron Bird, Warren E. Stewart, Edwin N. Lightfoot, “Transport Phenomena”, John Wiley & Sons, 2006.

R.H. Perry, D.W. Green, “Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ handbook” VIII ed., Mc Graw Hill 2008.

M.C. Annesini, “Fenomeni di trasporto. Fondamenti e applicazioni”, Edizioni Hoepli.

Kalliat T. Valsaraj, “Elements of Environmental Engineering Thermodynamics and Kinetics”, Lewis Publishers, Washington 2000.

O. Paladino, G. Hodaifa, M. Neviani, M. Seyedsalehi, A. Malvis , “Modelling in Environmental Interfaces”, in Advanced Low-Cost Separation Techniques in Interface Science, Vol. 30 1st Edition, G. Kyzas and A. Mitropoulos Eds, Academic Press, 2019.

Exam Board

OMBRETTA PALADINO (President)

BARBARA BOSIO

MARCO PANIZZA

ELISABETTA FINOCCHIO (President Substitute)

TEACHING METHODS

The course provides lectures (with the help of slides provided by the teacher) and exercises/ laboratory activity.

Theoretical contents alternate exercises and case studies aimed at encouraging the learning and discussion of specific problems involving the use of different approaches to model the system under study.

Transversal competences as autonomy of judgment will be acquired during the solution of the case studies, to be carried out in a group, communication skills will be acquired during the discussion of case studies and oral examination.

The course is on-line, using the Teams platform. Lectures are recored and available to the students. Work groups are created on Teams platform and case studies are discussedindividually with each group.

LESSONS START

Ist Semester

Class schedule

All class schedules are posted on the EasyAcademy portal.

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Written exercise: a real problem about a simple environmental process (contamination by chemicals).

Oral examination: questions about about theory.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Written exercise: it is used to evaluate the ability of the students to apply theory in order to assess contamination / risk at screening level  (with different types of simple models).

Oral examination: it is used to evaluate the contribute of each student inside the team work and her/his capability to apply theory.

Exam schedule