Ithaca College

Please join us for a talk with Linda Tseng, Colgate University Departments of Environmental Studies & Physics entitled 'Radiocarbon analysis as a tool to understand the fate of fossil carbon in water recovery processes.'

The greenhouse gas (GHG) emission accounting procedures published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assume that all carbon dioxide (CO2) generated by water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) in the treatment process is modern thus is omitted.  Using radiocarbon dating we confirmed that a combination of modern and fossil carbon enter municipal WRRFs. We compared the fossil carbon content at different points of the WRRFs with their GHG potential, calculated as CO2-equivalent from ideal combustion.  The results showed that there was up to 28% of carbon in the influent being fossil, and secondary sludge had the highest CO2-equivalent emission potential of up to 0.29 kg fossil CO2 per m3 wastewater treated.  Our study showed that a WRRF can contribute a fractional fossil emission which may increase the current IPCC WRRF GHG inventory up to 23%.

Dr. Linda Y. Tseng received her PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Irvine in 2012. After her doctoral degree, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for two years.  She has been a lecturer and a visiting research scholar at UCLA and her doctoral alma mater.  She has been an assistant professor at Colgate University since Fall 2016.  Her research interests include extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), fate and transport of emerging contaminants in wastewater and their removal using EPS, and quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) in recreational coastal waters.

Tues., Sept. 12, 2017
CNS 206B @ 12:10 p.m.

Pizza and Refreshments will be available for $1.
Please bring your own cup.
Remember to Recycle, Reuse, Reduce.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact the department assistant at jackerman@ithaca.edu. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.