ABE@IllinoisAGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING

Winter 2019

Winter 2019 I ABE@Illinois I 1

Greetings from Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Welcome to the latest issue

of ABE@Illinois, which

focuses on water and the global

environment. Luna Leopold, a

leading U.S. geomorphologist and

hydrologist, has said, “Water is the

most critical resource issue of our

lifetime and our children's lifetime.

The health of our waters is the

principal measure of how we live on

the land.”

In these pages, you will read

about examples of ABE teaching, research, and outreach activities that address this critical resource issue

of water. They begin with teaching students from across the campus about the importance of water in a

global context through ABE 199: Water and the Global Environment. ABE’s global outreach efforts span

many parts of the world, as reflected in the descriptions of projects in Honduras and Sierra Leone that

address rural community needs for the supply of water.

Water issues also apply in the urban context, and ABE researchers Paul Davidson and Lu-Ming Chen

are studying experimental permeable water pavements that help with drainage. Research by Yuanhui

Zhang addresses the challenge of separating wastewater from different sources, such as humans, animals,

and plants, and growing algae in that wastewater as a method of removing excess nutrients and capturing

carbon dioxide. The algae is then harvested and converted into a fuel source.

We are able to leverage our research farm not only to carry out research, but also to provide

demonstration facilities—for example, with short courses offered regularly to personnel from the Illinois

Department of Transportation, who take care of the state’s roads, including designing and building them to

include adequate drainage.

This suite of articles is a sample of the many water-related efforts of our faculty, students and alumni.

Please enjoy the articles, and let us know your thoughts. We would love to hear from you.

Best regards,

Alan Hansen, Interim Head

ABE@IllinoisAGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING

Winter 2019

The Department ofAgricultural and Biological

Engineering welcomes Dr. GopuRaveendran Nair to our faculty. Dr.Nair, who received his Ph.D. inbioresource engineering fromMontreal’s McGill University,specializes in the application ofmicrowave energy, radio frequency,and high electric field in food andbiomass processing. Hired as ateaching assistant professor in thefall of 2018, Nair currently teachesTSM 100 (fall and spring), TSM233 (fall), and TSM 234 (spring).Nair and his wife, Meera, have a

son, Aaryan, who is five years old,and a daughter, Dhwani, one. Nairenjoys sports, plays cricket andbadminton, and was on the cricketteam at Kerala AgriculturalUniversity in India during hisundergraduate years. Welcome, Dr. Nair!Other ABE news includes

upgrades to various offices,laboratories, and displays in thebuilding. In a challenging economicclimate, we have made every effortto use our funds wisely to maintainand improve the ABE environment.These are some of the changesthat have been made:

• Fresh carpet, furniture, and paintfor the department’s main office,including the office of thedepartment head. Photographsby renowned Illinois graduateLarry Kanfer give the space adistinctive “Illinois” feel, and webelieve the changes reflect thepride everyone associated withABE can claim.

• Dr. Girish Chowdhary is movingand expanding the FieldRobotics Engineering andSciences Hub (FRESH) on thefirst floor of AESB. Chowdhary’s

research advances the design,construction, and automation ofcollaborative aerial and groundrobotic systems.

• Dr. Tony Grift obtained fundingfrom the College of ACES andthe College of Engineering toupgrade the fluid powerinstruction laboratory. One smalllaptop with a second monitorhas been replaced with sixcomputers, each with a 49-inchscreen. Grift designed the tablethat holds the computers, andstudents can work at the

What’s New in ABE

ABE@ILLINOISWinter 2019

EDITORSMolly Bentsen

Anne Marie BooneLeanne Lucas

DESIGNPat Mayer

Published by the Departmentof Agricultural and BiologicalEngineering of the College ofAgricultural, Consumer andEnvironmental Sciences andthe College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at

Urbana Champaign

338 Agricultural EngineeringSciences Building

1304 W. Pennsylvania Ave.Urbana, IL 61801

Phone: (217) 333-3570Email: abe@illinois.edu

On the coverABE professor Paul Davidson,and Lu-Ming Chen, ABEpostdoctoral research

associate, measure snowfallon the permeable pavementsite located at the ABEResearch Farm in south

Urbana.

Water and the Global EnvironmentWhat’s New in ABE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1

Keeping it in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2

ABE Alumni in the World of Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 5

ABE 199: Water in the Global Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8

P3 Studies Pavement Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 10

ABE Farm Provides Platform for Water Research . . . . . .Page 12

Harvesting Rainwater in Sierra Leone . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . Page 14

EE-FEWS Tackles Burden of Biowaste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 16

benches and see the monitorsfrom anywhere in the room.

• ABE staff are working with agraphic designer from universityFacilities and Services to installa three-story window treatmentin the North Tower and toupgrade boards and displaycases throughout the building.Don’t just take our word for it—

we invite you to stop by and seethe great things going on in theAgricultural Engineering SciencesBuilding!

Top: Gopu Nair, teaching assistant professor in ABEBottom: ABE professor Tony Grift in the recently upgraded fluid power instruction laboratory

Alan Hansen, interim head of ABE, works in his newly refurbished office in AESB.

2

Technology doesn’t exist in avacuum, and that’s a conceptthat students face head-on

when they enroll in Engineering 440:International Water Project.Ann-Perry Witmer, an instructor in

the Department of Agricultural andBiological Engineering, has taughtthe course for six years. She co-teaches the class with ABE Ph.D.candidate Keilin Jahnke. The class, which spans two semesters, can bea student’s first exposure to contextual engineering, a new area of thediscipline that investigates the relationship between technical designand non-engineering considerations like politics, culture, and economics. “Contextual engineering merges engineering with the social sciences.

It requires an engineer to learn the needs that are unique to a client fromthe client’s perspective before trying to address them,” says Witmer.Each year’s 20 to 30 students enrolled in ENG 440 spend the year

designing the technical, social, and political aspects of a waterdistribution system for a village in another country. The coursechallenges many of them, Witmer says, in requiring serious self-reflection.“To understand the client’s perspective, students first have to

recognize their own reasons for doing things and to build anunderstanding of how people in their client community are different from— and similar to — them,” says Witmer. “This can be a painful processbecause it calls into question a lot of the assumptions of engineers —mainly that we’re the experts and we know better than anyone else whatshould be done.”Because the course is multidisciplinary, only about half of the

students are engineers. “Students from other disciplines come into thecourse a little terrified that they’re not going to be able to contribute, andthe engineers come in thinking they’re in charge. We spend a lot of timethe first semester correcting those assumptions. It can get stressful foreveryone,” Witmer points out with a smile. “That’s why we started usingalumni mentors. Alumni who made it through a previous class volunteerto work with the current students and help them through the process.They’re able to say, ‘I got through it and so will you. Just ride it out and itwill make sense.’ ”Witmer says a second tier of mentors is equally important. “Rather

than trying to know everything about everything, students need toidentify expertise. So we have professional advisors who are

practitioners in areas that are notengineering but are related to thecourse, such as community health,sociology, and translation studies.”Witmer brings the mentors to

the classroom, but it is up to thestudents to figure out how to usethem, she says. “One of the most

important goals of this course is to help students understand how thingsare done in real-life engineering. I was a consultant for water systems formore than a decade. No consultant is ever going to hand you a list ofproblems to solve, or say, Do these calculations and everything will work.A lot of the job is figuring out how to work with the consultant to identifythe problem. So we bring the mentors to the classroom and have themtalk to the students, but the students have to take it from there.”Students also must define and organize the teams they will need

within the course to design the water system. “Because Engineering440 takes all levels of students as well as all disciplines,” Witmer says,“we have Ph.D.’s and we have freshmen. So students are given enoughstructure to make sure their teams are diverse — because we don’t wanta graduate team or an engineering team or a political science team —but they need to figure out what the needs are and how they want todivide themselves.”At the semester break, Witmer travels with about 15 students to the

community where the water system will be installed. The goal is toimmerse the students for 10 days to learn as much as they can aboutthe community’s culture and needs. “Students aren’t allowed to stay in nice hotels,” Witmer explains.

“Everyone brings sleeping bags and mattress pads to use in space werent from the village. We live with community members, and we hirepeople from the community to cook meals for us so that we eat whatthey eat. We interview locals, and the information we gather enables usto better understand their values and their expectations. The mosttechnologically advanced infrastructure isn’t sustainable if it can’t coexistwith a community’s value system.” As an example, she talks about an experience the class had two years

earlier in Honduras, with a community identified with the Lenca sect ofthe Mayans. “The Lenca have a very strong spiritual connection to theearth. At one point, the leader of the community took us to see somevery special springs, called ‘ojos,’ or ‘eyes.’ The water was beautiful, andwe told the community we could build a catch bin and put a pump in it

Keeping it in Context“Contextual engineering merges engineering with the social

sciences. It requires an engineer to learn the needs that

are unique to a client from the client’s perspective before

trying to address them.”

Winter 2019 I ABE@Illinois I 3

Julissa Nunez, a student in ENG 440, focused her design work in Honduras onfacilities at a local elementary school. The school has only one simple pila, soJulissa worked with professional advisors to create a full lavamano (handwashingstation), latrines and showers that will be constructed for the students and teachers.

Ann

-Per

ry W

itmer

“We interview locals, and the information we gather enables us

to better understand their values and their expectations.

The most technologically advanced infrastructure isn’t

sustainable if it can’t coexist with a community’s value system.”

4 Winter 2019 I ABE@Illinois I 5

and that those springs could serve the community for many years tocome.”When the leader learned that a catch bin, used to keep bacteria out of

the water, was a concrete box, the answer was a definite no. “Wecouldn’t put concrete around those springs, because they were thepassageway to the afterlife,” says Witmer. “Covering them with concretewould prevent passage and condemn everyone in that community towalk the earth for eternity. If we had built a concrete box over thosesacred springs, the community would have broken the box and taken itaway.”When the students return from their immersion trip, they use the

information they’ve gathered to do complete engineering designs for thewater system — by hand as opposed to using any design software. “Ifwe created them the way we do in the U.S., no one would know how toread them,” says Witmer. “We put the designs through a full quality-control evaluation by professional engineers before we give them backto the community for their final approval.”Of the six ENG 440 classes, the water systems designed by the first

three have been completed, and construction for the fourth is underway.Projects usually require $15,000 to $20,000. A group of Rotary clubs inFlorida, which Witmer has worked with for many years, raises the funds.“Our most recent project was with Llano Largo and San Antonio,

Honduras, two communities who partnered on their water system,” saysWitmer. “Construction will probably start in the fall of 2019 and becompleted in the spring of 2020.” Meanwhile, Witmer is working with students in her sixth class on

projects in Honduras and Guatemala, the first time the class has workedin two countries at once.As gratifying as it is to bring clean water to communities in need,

Witmer knows that many students believe they have gained more fromtheir experience than they’ve given. “It’s transformative,” says Witmer.“And that’s their word, not mine. It’s not easy to step back from your ownvalues and expectations and look at someone’s life and needs through adifferent filter. When you do, it’s transformative.”

In Honduras, the pila is a common storage and use system for water at homes without indoor plumbing. It isa combination bathroom, kitchen sink, and laundry room. The tall structure on the right is a storage area orbathing stall, the tall section behind the gentleman is the latrine, and the short section over which he isleaning is a water tank into which a tap empties.

Matt Doherty, B.S. ’13 ABE – A Long Road

Alatent interest in science and engineering started Matt Dohertydown the road to the Department of ABE, but, like many high schoolstudents, Doherty says, “I was 95% clueless as to what I thought I

wanted to do. I was having a good time, and I didn’t want to think aboutcollege too much.” When he began to give the question of college more serious

consideration, he thought civil engineering might be a good fit. That’swhen a friend from home suggested he look into agricultural andbiological engineering. That friend was George Czapar – a very familiarname in the College of ACES, having recently retired as associate deanand director of the ACES Office of Extension and Outreach.“When George heard I was interested in engineering, he encouraged

me to check out the ABE program,” says Doherty. “If it weren’t for him Imight never have known about ABE in the first place. I’m still thankinghim to this day.”Doherty says he was “very tentative” about Illinois in the beginning.

“The idea of attending Illinois is daunting for a lot of small-town kids.There are always rumors about how cutthroat and competitive it is. And Iliked Southern Illinois University a lot. But while I knew I could succeed inCarbondale, I felt I had to give Champaign a try, or I would really regret it.”Doherty applied to Illinois through the transitional program that starts in

ACES, and he was the recipient of several notable scholarships, includingthose named for Jonathan Baldwin Turner, Sard Giles, Orville G. Bentley,and Robert and Dorothy Spillman. Despite his decision, Doherty flirtedwith the idea of transferring to the more “conventional” civil engineeringuntil the end of his sophomore year.“That’s when I became interested in some of Dr. [Prasanta] Kalita’s

courses focusing on soil and water management and conservation,” says

Doherty, “and I realized just how much I liked my friends in ABE, theABE faculty, and the hands-on style of courses the department offered.By the end of that year I knew I was right where I was supposed to be,and I never looked back.” After earning his bachelor’s degree in ABE, Doherty did go on to

earn a master’s in civil engineering at Illinois, and is now workingtowards his PE license in an engineering consulting firm in Nashville,Tennessee. “I do a lot of the soil and water conservation work for development

projects, some of which are agriculture- or rural-oriented; others aremore urban,” says Doherty. “Most projects involve design and planningfor construction, excavation, etc. I also do low-impact design work formanaging stormwater in a sustainable way. Rainfall is captured onsiteand pollution runoff and overloading of downstream systems areprevented through green infrastructure design. And I help out witherosion control plans to prevent large-scale soil loss on a site wheresoil would otherwise run off as a pollutant into a downstream system.”Doherty says his job involves tremendous variety day-to-day, and

though there are similar aspects to the projects he tackles, they allpose different challenges. “I might eventually try to apply my skills and interests back in the

government/academic/research side of things and I try to keep intouch with folks in the department as it’s always exciting to hear what’sgoing on back home,” says Doherty. “Those arenas offer uniqueopportunities that are rarely found in the private or corporate world. Ahealthy balance between both research and application would bepreferable, but who knows how things will play out. Hopefully life’s along road, and I’ll find out along the way.”

ABE Alumni in the World of Water

Akelos works to enhance development success

Kelsey Schreiber, a graduate student in ABE, is president ofAkelos, a nonprofit start-up that “helps existing international

water projects create community-specific solutions” around theworld.Schreiber and a group of colleagues recognized the need for

this work after their participation in ENG 440: InternationalWater Project. “Armed with a critical perspective from thatcourse, we recognized the shortcomings of development work,”says Schreiber, “and we wanted to create a nonprofit thatchallenged the status quo of international water projects.” Schreiber notes that there is no shortage of organizations that

pursue development initiatives in countries outside the U.S., butthe field is plagued with stories of failure, a dishearteningreminder that not all good intentions lead to success.“This comes as no surprise,” says Schreiber, “because it is

inherently difficult to work on international development projects.Such projects force us outside of our familiar cultural andpolitical contexts, and they require us to navigate the often-conflicting objectives of the stakeholders.”Schreiber says when failure occurs, it inevitably happens at

this gap in communication. “For example, the technicalachievements of an outside group of engineers are oftendisconnected from the local reality of the problem, or the fundingrequirements are completely mismatched with the priorities ofthe community.” So Akelos focuses its efforts on connection, communication,

and collaboration. “We work as consultants for our partners—other nonprofit organizations with existing water projects—byapplying our experience and insight where our partners mostneed the assistance.”The organization has worked in Guatemala, Honduras, and

Senegal, on projects with vast differences that required uniqueapproaches. “Akelos is having a positive impact on the waynonprofits manage their projects and their resources by helpingto facilitate conversations,” Schreiber concludes. “We providetechnical assistance when necessary, and we emphasize theimportance of working together with the communities we serve.”[Read Schreiber’s full article in ASABE’s Resource Magazine,

https://bit.ly/2ElMJOh, page 9]

Matt Doherty

Katie Flahive, B.S. ’99 AgE – Keeping the states “in shape”

For a runner, Washington, D.C. is a great backdrop for marathontraining,” says Katie Flahive, an environmental scientist at the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to running, Flahive says, she tries to spend time on the

Appalachian Trail, and she makes frequent visits to the ShenandoahNational Park. “And I love to spend time in the kitchen cooking andlearning from my messes.”Though her hobbies are an antidote to spending the workday at a

desk, Flahive enjoys that work as much as her off-hour activities.“I support states in their efforts to reduce water pollution from nonpoint

sources, with a focus on reducing nutrient losses from agricultural landsin the Mississippi River Basin,” she says. “I gauge the progress we maketoward reaching challenging water quality goals, and I work with faculty inag and water disciplines across the Midwest to understand the state ofthe art and apply it to EPA’s programs as well as to collaborate with otherfederal and state programs.”Flahive came to Illinois as a freshman and transferred to the

Department of Agricultural Engineering at the start of her sophomoreyear. A dean in the College of Engineering brought her to AESB to meetsome faculty members and ultimately helped her make the decision totransfer. After her first two ag engineering classes, Flahive says, it wasclear she had made the right decision.“I was pleased to find an engineering major in the environmental

sciences that was not all about the built environment and how to betteramend it,” says Flahive. “To me, ag engineering is about enhancing thenatural features in the built environment and maximizing this integrationto use but also protect and restore water and soil resources.”In fact, Flahive says, that might be one of the greatest challenges

facing ag engineers today. “It’s equally art and science to strike thebalance of a robust agricultural economy and healthy water resources.This department is important as ag engineers are creating the tools weneed to ensure that these resources will be protected and restored forgenerations to come.”The challenge is one that Flahive seems to relish. “I hear new ideas

and I work to make them accessible to those looking to innovate andsolve complex problems. I may sit in an office in Washington, D.C., but Ihave many opportunities to engage with creative thinkers with openminds through workshops and other means of applying knowledge toreality. It’s invigorating.”

16 Winter 2019 I ABE@Illinois I 7

Jennifer (Wolf) Delpierre, B.S. ’06 TSM – Family and Farm

Jennifer Delpierre is a soil conservationist with USDA-NRCS in KnoxCounty, but the young mother is also a farmer, a seamstress, and a formerrugby player.“I think it’s important to take advantage of as many opportunities as

you can and broaden your horizons,” says Delpierre. “Those opportunitiesgive you great experiences from which to learn, to develop as a person,and to build your career.”Delpierre has a lifelong history with agriculture and a family history with

the University of Illinois. “I knew I wanted to be an ag teacher or work insoil conservation,” she says. “My ag teacher and FFA sparked my interestin being a teacher, and the family farm and my dad’s involvement in thetiling business got me interested in soil conservation.”An uncle, two aunts, and a cousin are all Illinois alumni, and Illinois was

the only college to which Delpierre applied. She began her studies inagricultural engineering, but after a summer internship with a soil andwater conservation district in the office of the Natural ResourcesConservation Service, “I learned I didn’t have to have an engineeringdegree to design waterways and dry dams, so I switched to technicalsystems management.”During her college years Delpierre served an internship with Hancock

County’s Soil and Water Conservation District, where she evaluated CRP(Conservation Reserve Program) contract compliance in the field and didsome survey and design work on general practices. In a secondinternship with Illinois Extension in Knox and Rock Island counties, sheassisted with educational programs and developed a community garden.

Timothy Darms – P.E., B.S.’11 ABE – Joyfully Obligated

For Tim Darms, it’s just not possible to separate his work as anengineer from his Christian faith. “I feel joyfully obligated to use the giftsand skills God has given me for His glory,” says Darms.Darms is the senior project engineer in the Innovation Department at

Water Mission, a nonprofit Christian engineering organization based inNorth Charleston, South Carolina. Water Mission designs, builds, andimplements safe water, sanitation, and hygiene solutions for people indeveloping countries and disaster areas.Darms came to Illinois from Harper College, a community college in

Palatine, Illinois. “I did two years at Harper, and it was one of the bestdecisions I’ve ever made. I saved tens of thousands of dollars, and I wasmore than academically prepared to transfer to Illinois.“Illinois is one of the best engineering schools in the nation,” says

Darms, “and ABE provided me a broad engineering education. Thefoundations in hydraulics, groundwater, electricity, and other areas setme up well for my job. My engineering degree had direct application tohelping people overseas. And maybe most importantly, I learned how tolearn, and how to enjoy learning.”As senior project engineer for Water Mission, Darms works on an

array of projects, including developing off-grid solar water systems,automating the data collection process, and remotely monitoring systemperformance.“In the nonprofit world, it’s difficult to monitor system performance

after implementation,” says Darms, “so we continue to develop ourremote monitoring capabilities. These include monitoring of daily waterproduction and groundwater depth, pressure, turbidity, and ORP\.”There is great satisfaction for him in this mission field, says Darms.

“The work is challenging; I have to continue to learn to be successful atwhat I do. And, ultimately, our work at Water Mission glorifies God.“I consider this to be my ‘95%’ dream job,” he concludes. “The missing

5% would have me doing this while being overseas myself.”

A college highlight for Delpierre was studying abroad in Stuttgart,Germany, the summer of 2005. “I took a three-week course on agriculture economics, and I had a roomin a retired professor’s home. My living arrangements immersed me inthe culture of Germany off campus, and my memories of local peopleand places are too many to count. My one regret is that I didn’t take theopportunity to study abroad for an entire semester.”Today, a typical day on the job can include work with three different

financial assistance programs along with conservation compliance.“CRP, EQIP (the Environmental Quality Incentives Program), and CSP(the Conservation Stewardship Program) are voluntary programs thatoffer financial assistance to producers to install conservation practicesto improve their farming operations. “I enjoy helping farmers conserve the land that we have,” Delpierre

says. “It takes a long time for soil to form, but it can be so easily washedaway in a single storm event.”Delpierre farms with her husband Jaysen; they have a small cattle

operation. Time with her children includes playing, running, or bikingoutside, sewing, reading Fancy Nancy to her four-year-old daughter,Jaclynn, and truck books with her one-year-old son, Beau. “My onlyreading these days involves children’s books, but any reading with mykids is always worthwhile.

Jennifer (Wolf) Delpierre

Katie Flahive

Timothy Darms

6

8

The need to understand andappreciate the world’slargest natural resource—

water—is deepening every day.One course in ABE addressesthe impact of water availabilityand quality on the daily lives ofpeople around the globe.“Water is our most precious

resource,” says Prasanta Kalita,professor in ABE and one ofthree instructors for ABE 199:Water in the Global Environment.Rabin Bhattarai and PaulDavidson, also professors in ABE,co-teach the class.

Winter 2019 I ABE@Illinois I 9

Although papers and examsare part of the course, Kalitadoesn’t believe traditionalevaluation methods arenecessarily the best. “CHPstudents are the best of the best,”says Kalita. “There is no possibilitythat these kids are going to fail,so along with exams, we askthem to pursue a topic that canexpress their creativity.”Last year, the instructors

received a request from aprofessional society for studentvideos dealing with the value ofwater. “The EnvironmentalEngineering and ScienceFoundation sponsored a nationalcompetition to increaseawareness about the stewardshipof water,” says Kalita. “We hadfour teams enter the competition;one placed first and another third. It was very gratifying to seethe teams’ hard work recognizedin that way. [The videos areavailable for viewing athttp://www.eesfoundation.org/student-video-competition.]“Water quality and its effect on

the global environment is one oftoday’s most important and criticalareas of worldwide concern,”Kalita says. “We want ourstudents to use the knowledgethey gain in this class to make animpact both locally and globally.“It’s my dream to see ABE 199

offered across campus,” he says.“We’d hold it in FoellingerAuditorium and have 700students. That’s a big class,” heconcludes with a grin, “and I don’tknow how I would manage it, but Ihave to dream.”

The course is part of theCampus Honors Programs(CHP), which admitsapproximately 125 incomingfreshmen each year. CHPstudents take specializedversions of general educationcourses.“There was a real need for a

class that discusses waterconcepts to solve global waterproblems. We have water classesfor specific disciplines, but wehad nothing for students nottaking a class as part of theircurriculum,” says Kalita. “I waited

many years to see if anyonewould offer a broad-based class,but no one did. So I developedABE 199, and it has become oneof the most popular classes thatCHP offers.”The course addresses water-

related issues in areas around theworld, including India, China, andAfrica. “How does water impactthe cultures in those places?”Kalita asks. “We don’t talk justabout technical aspects, likewater treatment and irrigationdesign. We talk about people andhow water impacts their well-

being. And we cover the wholespectrum—water quantity, quality,the global population, foodsecurity, everything.”The course includes guest

lectures by professionals fromvarious groups such as Engineerswithout Borders. PresidentEmeritus Robert Easter is also afrequent speaker. In addition,students take field trips to a localwater sanitation district, theUSDA Natural ResourcesConservation Service inChampaign, and the ABE farm insouth Urbana.

Water in the Global Environment

Prasanta Kalita, Rabin Bhattarai, and Paul Davidson, instructors for ABE 199, enjoy pizza with their students after a field trip to the Erosion Research and Training Center.

ABE 199 students tour the Erosion Research and Training Center.

Prasanta Kalita examines erosion control methods at the ABE farm.

“There was a real need for a class that discusses water

concepts to solve global water problems. We have water

classes for specific disciplines, but we had nothing for students

not taking a class as part of their curriculum.””

“Water quality and its effect on the global environment is one of

today’s most important and critical areas of worldwide concern.”

“Second, we’re looking at the water-quality benefits of permeablepavements,” he says. “When water infiltrates that type of pavement, itthen goes through the underlying soil. Soil typically acts as a very goodfilter, so we’re going to try to determine if different contaminants aremitigated by different pavements.”A third experiment will study the permeable pavements’ ability to

improve air quality by diluting pollutants emitted from cars parked onthe pads. “There is an exchange of air between the pavement and the

Left: Lu-Ming Chen and Paul Davidson discuss different samples of permeable pavements.Below: Tim Lecher clears snow off P3 research site.

P3 studies pavement options for stormwater management

Permeable pavement is a common best management practicerecommended for stormwater management in urban areas. A newstudy—the Permeable Pavement Project, known as P3—

examines several pavement systems to gauge their ability to adapt to avariety of environmental conditions. The study is being conducted byPaul Davidson, a professor in ABE, and Lu-Ming Chen, an ABEpostdoctoral research associate.Three types of paving materials have been installed at the ABE Farm

Research and Training Center in south Urbana. The first is conventionalimpermeable concrete, which is found in most parking lots. The secondis pervious concrete, a porous surface that is usually not recommendedfor high-volume and heavy-loading roads. If the surface is notmaintained properly, solid materials may clog the pavement pores andreduce the retention rate of the permeability over time. A third material is the JW Eco-Technology, invented and patented by

Jui-Wen Chen, president of Ding-Tai Co. Ltd. In Taiwan. “We chose thisproduct because it is a permeable pavement, has the potential tosupport heavy loads, and has never been used in the United States,”says Lu-Ming Chen.“The structure is an imbedded plastic aqueduct,” Davidson explains.

“It’s a frame you snap together that covers the whole area you want topave. You pour standard impermeable concrete inside this frame, and itfills in all the gaps. Once it dries, you pull the caps off of small holes thatallow the water to infiltrate.”P3 uses nine paving pads, each 20 feet by 10 feet, to mimic the size

of a one-car driveway. Three of the pads are conventional concrete,three are pervious concrete, and three are the JW Eco-Technologysystem. All the pads are oriented north to south with a two percentslope, allowing surface water to drain into the water collection system.The pits attached to the pavement pads are equipped with tanks andbarrels to collect both surface and subsurface runoff. By collectingsurface runoff and subsurface runoff separately, the researchers canassess the ability of each pavement system to reduce surface runoff.“The overall goal of P3 is to investigate the environmental adapting

capacity of the different pavement systems,” says Chen. “The distinctweather differences in the four seasons in Illinois allows us toinvestigate and compare the effects and functions of differentpavements in different seasons.”“We’re conducting several experiments,” says Davidson. “First we’ll

study the hydrological performance of the different pavements. If waterinfiltrates the permeable pavement faster, it should be able to reduceflooding and surface runoff.

Winter 2019 I ABE@Illinois I 11

soil, so we want to see if the pavements can capture and sequestersome of the exhaust gases,” says Davidson. “Tarps around the cars willkeep the gases in, and instruments will monitor the concentrations ofdifferent gases.”A fourth experiment will look at winter performance of the different

pavements. “Because of the exchange of air between the pavementand the soil,” says Chen, “warm air coming up from the soil could intheory affect snow melt and reduce snow accumulation. Each of the

nine pads is equipped with sensors to continuously monitor thetemperature on the pavement surface and a few feet above thepavement surface.“Here in Illinois temperature might not have a big impact, since we

can get a lot of snow,” says Davidson. “But in areas of Taiwan wherethey get only small amounts of snow, the temperature difference mightbe enough to affect plowing and salting roads.”The JW Eco-Technology system being tested has been installed in

China and Taiwan, but the demonstration site in south Urbana is theonly one in the United States.“Jui-Wen Chen [the inventor of the technology] flew here to help

install the pavement,” says Davidson. “His quality control is very high,and he wanted to make sure the system was installed according to hisdesign. Installation is a little more labor intensive, but if the benefitsoutweigh the labor, the system could definitely be worth theinvestment.”Taiwan Ding-Tai Co., Ltd. provided the material and consultation

required for the company’s pavement, and the research team has anongoing MOU allowing them to research the patented permeablepavement. The P3 research is currently being funded by a consortiumof private companies.

“The structure is an imbedded plastic aqueduct. It’s a frame you snap together

that covers the whole area you want to pave. You pour standard impermeable

concrete inside this frame, and it fills in all the gaps. Once it dries, you pull the

caps off of small holes that allow the water to infiltrate.”

10

12

water travels through the bioreactor in an effort to determine materialsand flowrates that provide the highest removal of contaminants from theoutgoing water. Laura Christianson, an assistant professor in crop sciences, also

studies drain water management at the farm, using monitoring wellsplaced around two different fields. A different management style is usedon the two fields to evaluate how the water and nitrates seep out ofeach. In addition to these water research projects, other projects include:

• A multi-year study to investigate the effect of tire pressure and tillagedepth on crop development, soil and water conditions, energyrequirements, and farming economics. (Dr. Tony Grift – ABE)

• The efficacy of proprietary insecticides to control western cornrootworm. The impact on the root systems is evaluated withtechniques developed at Illinois. (Dr. Joe Spencer, Dr. Nicholas Seiter –Crop Sciences)

• Multiple tillage treatment plots contain replicated tillage regimens.ABE students and staff have conducted grain yields and soilcompaction evaluations annually since 1993.

• An environmental research facilities for poultry focuses on improvinganimal husbandry, primarily for commercial agriculture and researchlaboratory settings. (Dr. Angela Green-Miller – ABE)

• A study of residue management, weed control and seedbedpreparation with the Kelly Tillage System. (Dr. Tony Grift, Jake Niehaus—ABE)

• A study of acoustical soil sensing. (Dr. Tony Grift, Brendan Kuhns—ABE)

Tim Lecher, manager of the facility, has been with the departmentsince 2014. “This is an excellent research facility,” says Lecher, “butthere’s so much more that we offer. Al Hansen and Tony Grift [professorsin ABE] teach classes that give students an overview of agriculturalmachinery and off-road equipment, and we have a fleet of equipmentfrom a number of industry equipment manufacturers. John Deere hasbeen very generous to us, and we have equipment from CaseIH, NewHolland, and DMI as well.”Lecher says they have conducted farm tours for different

manufacturing and industry groups, including an internationalengineering group from John Deere Worldwide Crop Harvesting ProductDevelopment. “These were people in leadership who research anddevelop John Deere combines, and they were from Deere centers inIllinois, Germany and Brazil.”Lecher said the farm is also home to the Solar Decathlon House, a

solar home developed in part by students in ABE who participated in theSolar Decathlon in 2011, a biennial competition sponsored by the U.S.Department of Energy. Student clubs who use the farm include the Illini Pullers and the Mini-

Baha SAE. These teams design and build quarter-scale tractors and off-road vehicles for national competitions. They have a test track area at thefarm to develop and test their equipment prior to competitions.“We’re always looking for research opportunities and support in order

to keep our equipment and the facility current,” Lecher concludes. “Wewant our students to have the best learning experience possible, and thefarm is one of our greatest resources—for anyone interested in ag andbio engineering.”

Left to right: Professor Angela Green-Miller collecting eggs at the farm; earthen berm and pond used to study erosion control methods and products; Illini Pullers test tractor "Commander-in-Chief" for competition.

ABE farm provides platform for water research—and much more

“We want our students to have the best learning experience

possible, and the farm is one of our greatest resources.”

The Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering has longbeen a leader in the research areas of water quality, management,conservation, and distribution. Much of that work is done at the

ABE Research and Training Center, an extensive off-campus facility insouth Urbana that provides a comprehensive platform for a variety ofresearch projects. More commonly referred to as “the farm,” the facilityprovides 70 acres currently divided into 15 separate plots. Plot sizeranges from two to eight acres, and can be reconfigured to suit researchneeds. The farm can also access land from other groups for largerprojects: they currently use 40 acres from animal sciences. The permeable pavement project (see “P3 studies pavement options

for stormwater management,” page 10) is only one of several water

research projects at the farm. It is also home to the Erosion ControlResearch and Training Center. The site contains an earthen berm 300feet long and 13 feet high, and three ditches with check dams at thebase of the berm that drain into a small pond. ABE professors PrasantaKalita and Rabin Bhattarai research and evaluate products used forerosion and sediment control, and they provide training in erosion andsediment control best practices for State of Illinois Department ofTransportation employees and engineering professionals.Another project studies tile drainage through bioreactors. Richard

Cooke, ABE professor and drainage extension specialist, has equippedthree separate plot fields with field tile that is directed through a woodchip bioreactor. Water quality samples are taken at various points as the

Tim Lecher

Professor Alan Hansen and former graduate student Hao Gan workwith a soil cone penetrometer to measure soil compaction at the farm.

Winter 2019 I ABE@Illinois I 13

14

ABE professor Richard Cooke

Njala swamp in Sierra Leone

Harvesting rainwater in Sierra Leone: “A little goes a long way”

Winter 2019 I ABE@Illinois I 15

use what is known as a ‘floating’rice—a variety that can grow inextremely deep water. It is grownsimultaneously with the rice in thedownstream plots, but because ithas a longer growing time,between five and six months, wecan only grow one crop per year.”Cooke has another ongoing

project in the uplands. “We knowwe can’t do three crops in theuplands, but we are trying to do asecond one,” says Cooke. “For thisresearch we use sweet potatoes.The first crop is planted in therainy season. A student has

developed a system for trappingand storing the runoff water sowe can get a reliable second crop,which we plant near the end ofthe rainy season.” Because theimproved system and a secondcrop allow for a dramatic increasein yield, an economic analysisshowed an increased return ofabout 250 percent. This research started during

Cooke’s sabbatical leave based atNjala University in the fall of 2013.He has returned several times,including twice in 2017 and oncein late 2018. His colleagues at

Njala include Professor RashidNoah, Dr. Mohammad Blango, andDr. Patrick Sawyerr. Blango andSawyerr were supervised byCooke as Ph.D. students; Blangois the first Agricultural EngineeringPh.D. from that university. Blangois now interim head of Njala’sdepartment of agriculturalengineering, and Sawyerr is thesoil science department head.Sawyerr, in addition to his work atNjala, is part of the Sierra LeoneAgriculture Research Institute; heis tasked with teaching thetechnology for rainwater

harvesting systems across thecountry.There is a major difference

working in Sierra Leone ascompared with the United States,Cooke observes. “In Sierra Leone,a little goes a long way. You seesuch dramatic results. If we workon a project in the States and seea 3% or 5% increase, we feelgreat. But there is so muchpotential in Sierra Leone. Theinitial returns are very high, andthat is rewarding. If you canincrease someone’s income by250 percent, that’s a big deal.”

Aproject that began in 2013to harvest rainwater inSierra Leone is making a

significant impact on rice andsweet potato crops there.Richard Cooke, professor and

drainage extension specialist inthe Department of Agriculturaland Biological Engineering, workswith colleagues at Njala Universityto design rainwater-harvestingsystems that increase agriculturalproductivity in the country’s inlandvalley swamps and uplands.During Sierra Leone’s rainy

season, which lasts from May

through November, the countrycan receive up to 80 inches ofrainfall. But, Cooke says, there isno national strategy for collectingthe surplus rain to use during thedry season.“One of our projects is in the

lowest area of the Njala Universityinland valley swamp. We built aberm across half of the swamp,”says Cooke. “It’s basically a damwith a reservoir behind it. Wecollect the surplus rainfall to usefor irrigation during the dry season.An outlet structure in the damregulates the movement of water.”

Farmers in Sierra Leonenormally grow one rice crop peryear. “With our system,” saysCooke, “we can grow three cropsevery year—two rice and onelegume.”The rice grown in the swamp is

NERICA (New Rice for Africa)19, a variety developed for Africanconditions. “High yielding Asianvarieties were crossed withdisease-resistant Africanvarieties. The growing season isabout 90 to 100 days—a shortcrop. After harvest, we plant riceagain. We harvest the second

crop of rice, then we plantlegumes.”The researchers have found

that the yield in the dry season ishigher than the yield in the wetseason, Cooke says, and morethan twice the national average.The reason? “There is moresunlight, more direct solarradiation, so there are higheryields. We also add bio-char to thesoil, so there is some organicmatter that allows the soil to holdmore water.”Rice is also being grown in the

reservoir, according to Cooke. “We

Dr. Mohammad Blango, interim head of agricultural engineering, and Dr. Patrick Sawyerr,head of crop sciences, both with Njala University.

16

There is a critical need for research thatenables new means of adapting society’sconsumption of food, energy, and water,

especially dealing with its biowaste. YuanhuiZhang, a professor in ABE, is conducting researchthat uses these biowaste to produce bioenergyand food, reuse wastewater, and capture carbon. In collaboration with other researchers across the UI campus, Zhang

is developing a novel paradigm called EE-FEWS—Environment-Enhancing Food, Energy and Water Systems—to process biowaste. “The United States produces 79 million dry tons of biowaste annually

from animal manure and food processing alone,” says Zhang. “It’stypically been considered a burden instead of a resource.” One of thebiggest problems in extracting energy from biowaste is its high watercontent. Often more energy is required to dry it as can be extractedfrom it.EE-FEWS works by using hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) to

convert the wet waste without drying. HTL uses water as the reactionmedium; it mimics the natural process of forming fossil fuels, but it

reduces geologic time scales to less than anhour. HTL produces biocrude by separatinghydrocarbon compounds from nutrients in thebiowaste system.Fast-growing algae are cultivated in the

wastewaters from the original liquid wastestream and the HTL effluent, which is sterile

and free of microbial activity. Algae uptake a portion of the excessnutrients and capture carbon dioxide. The resulting treated wastewateris used for vegetable production, and the algal biomass is fed back tothe HTL process for conversion of additional biocrude, which allows formulticycle reuse of nutrients and carbon dioxide that can be added tothe biowaste stream.“We have proven by our own lab experiments that the EE-FEWS

paradigm can reuse nutrients three times,” says Zhang, “andsimulations have shown it might be possible to reuse nutrients 10times. The amount of biocrude is amplified by the same factor.”Because biocrude production and nutrient use efficiency are

dramatically increased, wastewater is treated and reused, food is

“The United States produces 79 million dry tons of biowaste annually from

animal manure and food processing alone.”

Winter 2019 I ABE@Illinois I 17

produced at much reduced need for chemical fertilizer or water, andcarbon is captured to a level of net-zero emission. In addition, Zhangsays, the EE-FEWS paradigm can be transferred to other sectors, suchas municipality biowaste.Zhang’s team includes ABE graduate students Aersi Aierzhati,

Michael Stablein, Megan Swoboda, and Jamison Watson. The team isworking on constructing a pilot-scale HTL reactor that is mounted on amobile trailer. The reactor will have the capacity to process one ton ofbiowaste and produce 30 gallons of biocrude per day.The students will also produce a video that documents this research.

“The National Science Foundation has a program, INFEWS [Innovationsat the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems], to fund discoveriesthat promote understanding of the interactions between the systems offood, energy, and water,” Zhang says. “They have asked us to produce avideo of our work that they will feature on their website.”In his most recent project, Zhang led a team to research and produce

renewable engine fuels (upgraded from HTL biocrude oil) that would becompatible with the existing diesel fuel infrastructure. Their paper,“Renewable Diesel Blendstocks Produced by Hydrothermal

Liquefaction of Wet Biowaste,” was published in the journal NatureSustainability in November 2018. The first author of the paper wasWan-Ting (Grace) Chen, a former graduate student of Dr. Zhang andnow a professor at the University of Massachusetts - Lowell.Mechanical science and engineering professor Chia-Fon Lee andMechSE graduate student Timothy Lee led the engine tests. Othercontributors were Zhenwei Wu, Buchun Si, Alice Lin, and Brajendra K.Sharma.“Because of the increasing complexity we find in each of these

systems, this research must be multidisciplinary,” says Zhang. “A singlediscipline can’t handle all of these systems alone. But agricultural andbiological engineering is involved in all of these systems at some level,and we are positioned to take a leadership role in this research.”The on-going effort is funded by the National Science Foundation,

the Institute for Sustainable Energy and Environment, University ofIllinois, and the UIUC Student Sustainability Committee.

The pilot scale reactor in use at an army base in Maryland, where the team made biocrude from sewage sludge.

EE-FEWS Tackles Burden of Biowaste

Yuanhui Zhang

“Because of the increasing complexity we find in each of these systems, this research

must be multidisciplinary. A single discipline can’t handle all of these systems alone.

But agricultural and biological engineering is involved in all of these systems at some

level, and we are positioned to take a leadership role in this research.”

2

Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering338 Agricultural Engineering Sciences Building1304 W. Pennsylvania AvenueUrbana, IL 61801

NONPROFITORGANIZATION

U.S. POSTAGE PAIDCHAMPAIGN, ILPERMIT NO. 453

This is a sample of the permeable pavement technology, JW Eco-Technology, invented and patented by Jui-Wen Chen, president of Ding-Tai Co. Ltd. In Taiwan.

College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences and College of Engineering