Cari Dutcher Receives the 2021 SERDP Project of the Year

ME Associate Professor Cari Dutcher's research on shipboard emulsions was awarded the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) Project of the Year award for Weapons Systems and Platforms, which recognizes scientific advances and technological solutions to some of the Department of Defense's most significant environmental and installation energy challenges. 

Dutcher's project will help understand the water treatment necessary for proper disposal of shipboard oily wastewater emulsions. The goal of the research is to assist the development of methodologies or technologies that can mitigate the formation and undesired consequences of shipboard emulsions through improved understanding of the factors that govern bilgewater emulsions. This will enhance the fundamental knowledge of the dynamic behavior of complex oil/water emulsions, which in turn can optimize the processes involved in the separation of oil from shipboard bilgewater in order to better clean the shipboard water.

The project, "Understanding Shipboard Oil/Water Emulsions Using Macro- and Micro-scale Flows," will contribute to theoretical knowledge that will help prevent oily bilgewater from contaminating oceans, lakes, and rivers.