Engineering Students Win Award at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Design Competition

Photo Submitted

Front row: Hiroko Nakao, Megan Huslig, Kylan Rakestraw, Jill Ivey, Lizbeth Rostro, Jeremy Stout. Back row: Bob Beitle, Jamie Hestekin, Ethan Carter, Elizabeth Bevan.

A team of chemical engineering and Honors College students from the University of Arkansas were awarded the Student Choice Award and an Honorable Mention at the Environmental Protection Agency’s People, Prosperity and the Planet Student Design Competition, or P3. The P3 competition recognizes innovative solutions to environmental problems.

The student team includes Elizabeth Bevan, Ethan Carter, Megan Huslig, Jill Ivey, Hiroko Nakao, Kylan Rakestraw, Lizbeth Rostro and Jeremy Stout. Their faculty mentors are Bob Beitle, Jamie Hestekin and Roy Penney.

For the competition, the students designed and built a biofuel miniprocessing unit, a machine that can turn algae and other biomass directly into fuel.  Algae, which grows quickly in streams and ponds, can be used to remove pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus from the water. It can then be harvested to make clean-burning biofuel. In addition, the leftover plant material can be used as fertilizer.  

The students’ device, which will be small enough to fit in the back of a pick-up truck and will produce a few milliliters of fuel-grade butanol at a time, could serve as a model for larger applications of this technology. For example, a larger machine based on this model could be used by farmers to turn plants directly into fuel for farm equipment.

“The competition was a lot of fun," said Hestekin. “It was an honor to win the Student Choice Award because it indicates that other students from some of the top universities in the nation recognize the dedication and quality of Arkansas engineering students”

This algae-to-butanol project has also been featured on Planet Forward’s website and Earth Day Special, and the chemical engineering team is competing to be one of Planet Forward’s Innovators of the Year. A video describing their project can be found at Planet Forward’s website, where you can help out the team by voting for them.