GER-9554556 Peters The Departments of Chemical and Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Carolina will establish an interdisciplinary traineeship program focusing on the reduction, recycle, or elimination of hazardous solvents in manufacturing processes. This program in Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing addresses an issue which is of great importance across the manufacturing spectrum, and which affects both large and small industries. The program includes significant interaction with small businesses in the State of South Carolina, as well as support from the State Department of Environmental Control. In addition, close collaboration with large companies such as AlliedSignal, AT&T, and Westvaco ensures that trainees will receive a broad exposure to fundamental and applied problems facing industry. Trainees will perform research in one of three broad areas: pressure swing adsorption for solvent recovery and recycle; supercritical fluid technology for solvent substitution and process modification; or modeling of solvent-intensive manufacturing processes (including adsorption and supercritical fluid technologies) for life cycle analysis and environmental design. The modeling effort in particular is designed to hasten the transfer of results of academic research to industry, including small businesses. Trainees will receive mentoring form outstanding academic scholars, as well as from industrial mentors. Some will have internships in domestic industries, while others may apprentice with AT&T Global Information Systems in Germany under an arrangement developed for this traineeship program. These trainees will also be given instruction in classroom teaching.
