NICK BEHLING

For my mechanical engineering master’s project at Northwestern University, I evaluated whether producing sodium hydroxide (NaOH) from seawater- and brackish groundwater-reverse osmosis (SW-RO, BGW-RO) desalination brine, posed any energy/environmental advantages to conventional methods of NaOH production, as co-product valuation is a potential route for making desalination more viable. Desalination is currently being investigated as a potential route to reduce water scarcity, a topic of interest to the Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office.

After reviewing the literature for information on material and water intensity of conventional NaOH production and desalination, I compared conventional- and desalination-based methods for NaOH production using Argonne National Laboratory’s Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy use in Transportation (GREET®) model. I determined that utilizing desalination technologies for NaOH production is less energy-intensive, less GHG-intensive, and less water-intensive than the conventional-based method, and that around 60% of the United States’ NaOH demand could be met by implementing NaOH production technologies in existing domestic seawater and brackish groundwater desalination plants.

This project was performed under the guidance of Dr. Jennifer Dunn of Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory. The data from this research project is currently being used by Dr. Dunn and Dr. John Lienhard of MIT, in preparation of a scientific journal paper on the same topic. Click here to view the final presentation. Please contact Dr. Dunn (and include my name and project in the subject line), for any underlying calculations used in the creation of the final presentation, and for any other questions.

Over the course of my senior year at The University of Texas at Austin, I worked as a research assistant under Dr. Jeffrey Scott Vitter, Jr. through Webber Energy Group. We submitted a journal paper titled “A Spatial Tool for Economic and Environmental Analysis of Water-related Residential Appliance Retrofits” (currently under review), which also ended up as a chapter in Dr. Vitter’s Ph.D. dissertation.

I wrote a case study that accompanies our journal paper/chapter, which applies our models and analyses discussed in our journal paper/chapter, to a 2010 appliance rebate program through NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research & Development Authority).

The PowerPoint presentation is a simplified version of the paper. Click here to download the PowerPoint presentation, and click here to download the paper.

Image source: https://photos.icons8.com/

For my Energy, Technology & Policy class, I was required to make a short video (3 minutes or less) of any topic that involved the combination of energy, technology, and policy. I discussed the energy intensity of the popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.

For my final project in my Thermal-Fluid Systems class, I teamed up with mechanical engineering undergraduates to model the General Electric Model LM2500 G4+ DLE Aeroderivative gas turbine — the same gas turbine that’s used in the Carl J. Eckhardt Combined Heat and Power Plant at the University of Texas at Austin — in MATLAB.

Click here to view the final report.

Click here to download the compressed folder that contains all pertinent MATLAB scripts and Excel spreadsheets used to generate the results. Be sure to read the included text file for instructions on how to use the scripts and spreadsheets. Additionally, the final report discusses the scripts and spreadsheets in further detail.

For my senior design project, I teamed up with fellow civil engineering students to perform a hydraulic analysis of the wastewater collection system in a portion of the Upper Boggy Creek Basin in Austin, Texas. The project was assigned by Dr. William O’Brien and Austin Water. The project was split up into three phases:

(1) Update Austin Water’s local GIS project file with pipe as-builts and wastewater profiles obtained from Austin Water’s Records Access Application online database.

(2) Evaluating the current capacities of the pipes in the wastewater collection system, and making recommendations to upsize any pipes that exceeded capacity, all done in accordance with the City of Austin’s Utility Criteria Manual (UCM).

(3) Predicting capacities of the pipes based on 20- and 50-year growth scenarios, and computing the total costs of the project based on current conditions and future growth predictions.

This project contains proprietary information. Thus, I’ve been told not to upload the actual report on here. For more information, please contact Rachel Chisolm of Austin Water: Rachel.Chisolm@austintexas.gov

For my Engineering Communications class, I co-wrote a briefing book with fellow engineering students and Dr. Jeffrey Scott Vitter, Jr. in the Cockrell School of Engineering. This briefing book offers insight on improving urban infrastructure in three major European cities: Barcelona, Stockholm, and Paris. Click here to download the briefing book.

For my Air Pollution Engineering Final Project, I teamed up with fellow civil engineering students to assess the impact of air pollution due to on-site construction vehicles. This is an interesting subject matter, because there isn’t a lot of research on air pollution-emitting sources that aren’t considered “on-road”, such as automobiles and public transit. Click here to download the white paper.

For my Hydraulic Engineering Design Final Project, I teamed up with fellow civil engineering students to design a new bridge that crossed the East Bouldin Creek that would mitigate high flood events, a detention pond upstream of the aforementioned bridge that would alleviate high flood events to an even higher degree, and a rain garden in the Brentwood Neighborhood. Click here to view the final report.