Global water consumption is at record levels, prompting concerns about sources, treatment, shortages, accessibility, and environmental impacts. While residential use is high due to population growth, industrial activities, particularly in sectors like textiles, are major contributors to overconsumption and pollution. The textile industry's emphasis on high-volume production, driven by capitalist economies and fueled by trends and social media, has led to increased consumption and waste, notably in the cotton sector, which has one of the highest water consumption rates. By investigating the three (3) top cotton-producing countries, an inference regarding global cotton production practices, water usage, and pollutant discharge was able to be made. These countries included India, China, and the United States. It was determined that the agricultural and post-harvest production conjointly sum to a water usage of about 10,000 m3 per ton. This includes water use for irrigation, various purification processes, serial dilutions for pollutants, cleansing, dyeing, and printing processes. In addition to high water consumption, the cotton industry is also a major source for pollution. These pollutants are due to many processes within the complete production process. The contaminants of concern within this investigation are azo dyes. These dyes are able to degrade into toxic byproducts called aromatic amines which are known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic, and irritating. They also reduce sunlight transmittance and increase the BOD and COD within aquatic ecosystems. Popular remediation methods include reverse osmosis, electrolysis, and biological decoloration – through fungi and prokaryotes – are used due to their high degradation efficiency of around 90%. Although this efficiency rate is quite high, a newer remediation method for azo dyes was found that has a 99.8% efficiency rate along with reusable materials. This process utilized silver nanoparticle-intercalated cotton fibers to completely remove the dyes from the tested waters. Through the investigation, inefficiencies and possible sustainability initiatives were determined that will hopefully become globally implemented in order to reduce the large impact of the cotton textile industry.

Nitrate (NO3-) pollution in surface and groundwater, worsened by nitrogen-rich fertilizers in agriculture, poses a significant challenge. Conventional methods remove NO3- physically, yielding concentrated reject water needing further treatment. Electrochemical processes use electrons to convert NO3- into ammonia (NH3) or dinitrogen (N2). This project explores photoelectrocatalysis, enhancing selectivity for NH3 as an added-value product using a photocathode based on tri-layers. Titanium oxide (TiO2) nanorods modified with Ag and CuOx nanoparticles that exhibit high NO3- conversion rates and exceptional NH3 selectivity. Mechanism evaluation reveals additive effects between photocatalysis and electrocatalysis, surpassing individual performances. This approach offers promising solution for NO3- pollution remediation and sustainable resource recovery in agriculture.

Phosphate is a necessary and soon to be scarce nutrient needed for all life that is found in urine. Metal chlorides can be used to extract phosphate that can be converted into useful products, namely struvite a fertilizer. Different metal chlorides’ phosphate removal ability in urine were measured by testing a molar equivalent amount of metal chloride tested at 5 minutes and 24 hours in duplicate. Phosphate removal was calculated using spectrophotometry and compared across the metal chlorides in a simulation in Visual MINTEQ, simple synthetic, full synthetic, and real urine for fresh and hydrolyzed urine. It was found that simple and full fresh synthetic urine had comparable results, but synthetic urine and real urine did not. It was also found that simple and full hydrolyzed synthetic urine are not very comparable. Overall, there was more precipitation in the real urine than the full synthetic urine and hydrolyzed urine. Time did not have a large effect on the removal trends between the same type of urine. CeCl3 performed the best for both fresh and hydrolyzed urine, and struvite produced more in hydrolyzed real urine rather than fresh.

The post-industrial era ushered in significant advancements in global living standards, largely driven by technological innovations. The events of the 20th century shaped how these innovations implemented themselves into American culture, particularly influencing consumption habits. The broad shift to reliance on single use materials led to concerns about resource exploitation and environmental sustainability. Recycling stands as a vital tool in mitigating these concerns, while maximizing sustainable goals and circular material life cycles. While recycling stands as an important concept in material reuse, the United States recycling infrastructure faces some major inefficiencies that prevent it from achieving its optimal benefits. Investigating the growth of curbside recycling and the consequences of China’s ban on recycling materials reveal failures within the recycling system. Once identified, further analysis of recycling failures emphasizes the use of concepts such as industrial ecology to visualize how industrial materials are influenced by broader multi-dimensional systems. One such level of analysis involves investigating the shortcomings of current recycling technologies and their implementation. However, to provide a fuller explanation of these inefficiencies, analysis of cultural, economic, and political dimensions is necessary. Case studies of recycling systems in different types of U.S. cities such as San Francisco and Surprise, provide insights into the effectiveness of these dimensions at highlighting core failures. Analysis of these failures also provides a framework in which to engineer possible solutions for recycling systems that emphasis the growth of cohesive recycling infrastructure and leveraging legislation to influence the recycling rates and the production of more renewable materials.

In the realm of environmental engineering, the compound N-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-N′-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine (6PPD), has recently emerged as an environmental concern. 6PPD serves as a tire additive to prolong the lifespan of rubber but can transform into a more toxic derivative, N-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-N′-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine-quinone (6PPD-quinone), when exposed to ground-level ozone. Initially, my research sought to investigate the biodegradation of 6PPD and 6PPD-quinone using microbial cultures. However, unexpected challenges arising from limited solubility and potential toxicity to microorganisms led to a shift in research objectives. The study then refocused on developing methods for detecting and quantifying 6PPD and 6PPD-quinone. The scarcity of literature available on the environmental fate and transport of these compounds underscores the pressing need for further research to gain a comprehensive understanding of the behavior of these chemicals. Consequently, the development of effective detection strategies will enable the development of effective remediation strategies to safeguard aquatic ecosystems.