UB Student Engineers Win Regional Contest With Innovative Project To Help Clean Up Environment

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A group of chemical-engineering majors from UB has won a regional design competition for developing an apparatus and procedure to purify and recycle a solvent used in the rubber industry.

The student team, made up of 15 undergraduates from the Department of Chemical Engineering who are part of the UB student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), will go on to compete in the national competition to be held in October.

The contest, sponsored by the AIChE, required students to "design, build and operate an apparatus that demonstrates how chemical-engineering principles can be applied to pollution prevention and/or environmental cleanup."

In their project, entitled "Organic Solvent Separation for a Cleaner Environment," the UB students developed an apparatus and technique for purifying and recycling methyl ethyl ketone, a substance used as a solvent in the rubber industry.

Mark Swihart, assistant professor of chemical engineering and faculty advisor to the UB student chapter of AIChE, said he is impressed with the work of the students, who came up with the idea on their own, worked independently and successfully found a creative solution to a complicated problem.

"It's great experience for the students because it helps them learn open-ended problem-solving and how to work on a team," Swihart added.

He explained that the students designed a commercial scale unit for the solvent recycling and then calculated how it would benefit a company.

"Their economic analysis showed that a small rubber company that uses only 15 gallons of solvent per week would save more than $70,000 and use about 20,000 gallons less solvent over a 10-year period by implementing their solvent-recycling system," said Swihart.

The project team leaders are seniors Tracey Blaszak of Orchard Park, Gilbert Doucet of Wheatfield, Jessica Tworek of Lancaster and Paul Trillizio of the West Side of Buffalo.

Other members of the team are Jeff Abbatiello of Rochester; Erin Pytlik of Niagara Falls; Kristi Nomm of East Aurora; Danjiela Milosevic of Toledo, Ohio; Dave Loschiavo of Cheektowaga; Daryl Molino of Lancaster; Jim Nazzaro of Jamestown; Elijah Kim of Liverpool; Matt Wetter of Latham; Amit Parikh of East Islip, and John Joy of Tonawanda.

"The project allowed us to step out of the supervised, graded environment of the classroom and into a more creative and free-thinking environment where our ideas could become a reality," said Trillizio.

"I think what gave us the winning edge was the fact that we took a real-world problem and tried to solve it," he added. "We took something that most of us knew little about and turned it into a process that can be implemented in industry."

This is the first time UB students have participated in the annual AIChE competition. At the finals, the UB team will compete with AIChE student chapters from Rowan University, the University of Iowa, the University of California at Davis, University of Wisconsin and the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.