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Published in the August 2022 issue of The RICC, the Research and Innovation at City College electronic magazine, ‘Introducing CCNY Fulbright Scholars’ recognizes Dr. Castaldi’s work in Italy and France in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Titled ‘Turning Municipal Solid Waste Into Energy”, the article focuses on Castaldi’s reflections over the past 4 years with regard to the impact the experience has since had on his research career: “the Fulbright not only gave me that great opportunity over those four months that spanned over two years, but then led to a really unique idea that we were then able to get funded for.”

The Combustion and Catalysis Lab wishes a huge congratulations to the newest CCL graduate, Dr. Tasnuva Moutushi, for defending her thesis entitled ‘Investigation of Reactions Occurring in Municipal Solid Waste Residues’.

The biennial meeting of the International Conference on Engineering for Waste and Biomass Valorisation took place in Copenhagen this year from June 27-30 at the Technical University of Denmark. 4 current members of the Combustion and Catalysis Lab and a visiting student attended the meeting, the 9th one to occur in the 17 years over which the Waste Eng Conference Series has been held. The group chaired 2 sessions, presented 6 talks, and served on the student presentation awards committee. The abstracts of the presentations and details about the conference events can be found here.

Recently, Zachary Dorazio, of the 5^th grade, visited CCL to answer his question, “Can we turn leaves into biofuels?”  Zack is the son of CCL Alumnus, Dr. Lucas Dorazio who received his Ph.D. in 2008 and is currently the lead of the Gasoil Technologies and Refinery Catalyst R&D Team at BASF.  CCL routinely hosts high school students to conduct research, and a few have made it to the semi-finals for competitions such as the Intel and Westinghouse Awards.  This is the first time we had an elementary school student come to CCL to obtain answers to some very complex questions that will surely be answered in the future.  It is clear Zach is well on his way to making a positive impact in a critical area of engineering and science, and the CCL team is sure he deserves an A+ on his project!  We look forward to hopefully seeing Zach during his high school years when he undertakes even more forward looking research.

The North American Catalysis Society’s biennial meeting was held in New York, NY from May 22nd to 27th, 2022 at the Hilton Midtown. CCL principal investigator, Marco Castaldi, co-chaired the organizing committee along with CCL alumnus and current BASF Team Lead, Lucas Dorazio. The Combustion and Catalysis Lab had 6 current group members in attendance, who collectively chaired 2 sessions, presented 1 poster, presented 2 talks, and received a Kokes Award. The abstracts of the presentations and details about the conference events can be found here.

In a recent climate piece published by CNBC, journalist Katie Schoolov quotes Marco J. Castaldi’s insights on the benefits of waste to energy in solving America’s waste challenges. Read the article and watch the broadcast here to learn more about the work Combustion and Catalysis Lab members are doing to support healthy debate in the climate space while relying on rigorous, scientific analyses.

CCL members had the opportunity to tour Westchester’s Material Recovery Facility on April 6, 2022 where they learned about the recycling efforts underway in one of New York City’s neighboring communities. Students and researchers were able to view machinery in action as it separated, sorted, and prepared materials to be sold to third-party manufacturers. The facility staff were highly knowledgeable, and everyone in attendance found the experience incredibly enriching. Many thanks to Lou, George, and Melissa for their hospitality and expertise!

Published on Syracuse.com with headline “Chemical engineer: Critics mischaracterize science behind advanced recycling”, Dr. Marco Castaldi’s recent letter to the editor responds to an op-ed article published therein which inaccurately described the processes employed in advanced recycling technologies as ‘burning’. The op-ed, authored by Judith Enck and Tok M. Oyewole, is headlined ‘Plastic burning “has no place in climate-forward NY”‘, inaccurately suggesting that the technology discussed therein, advanced recycling, involves the combustion of plastics. In addition to the absence of plastics combustion, the characterization of advanced recycling as a technology that should be banned from climate-conscious waste management strategies is also unsubstantiated by the most recent EPA analyses. Rather, there is consensus among sustainability experts performing detailed life cycle analyses that at present, advanced recycling should play a role in crafting of a balanced portfolio of solutions. That is, the sustainable waste hierarchy cannot be fully engaged without a technology for processing hard-to-recycle plastics such as flexible pouches, films, and tubes, and this is the primary focus of advanced recycling techniques.

CCL members Tasnuva Moutushi and Dr. Swanand Tupsakhare published their work with Dr. Castaldi in the journal Science of the Total Environment. The article is titled Abiotic decomposition of municipal solid waste under elevated temperature landfill conditions. Tasnuva Moutushi and  Dr. Swanand Tupsakhare studied the decomposition of solid waste under elevated temperature landfill conditions under controlled temperature and controlled heat flux in an experimental campaign in CCL. This is their second publication from this experimental campaign. The previous publication from this project was also in STOTEN, titled The Impact of pressure, moisture, and temperature on pyrolysis of municipal solid waste under simulated landfill conditions and relevance to the field data from elevated temperature landfill.

CCL Second-year PhD student, Kaitlyn Lawrence, was one of the recipients of the ‘2021-2022 Floyd Hasselriis Educational Support’ awards sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME) Materials and Energy Recovery Division. The award, established to support students and institutions interested in solid waste management and related fields, is named after the late Floyd Hasselriis, a major contributor to the fields of incineration and thermal treatment technologies and author of the foremost text on the topic of refuse-derived fuel.