Browsing by Author "Ray, Matt"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Camargo Waste to Energy Power Plant
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2013-04-05) Zamenian, Hamed; Nasser, Eminou; Ray, Matt; Iseley, Tom
    The Camargo Waste to Energy Power plant project is being proposed to dispose of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) produced in Mexico. Currently, most urban Municipal Solid Wastes in Mexico are discarded in landfills. The Camargo Waste to Energy (WTE) power station is an opportunity to continue a green path of human ingenuity and technical advancement. The goal of this plant is to achieve a solution that can efficiently deal with the substantial percentages of solid waste, while also creating energy. The facility will be designed to handle 600 pound per hour of MSW collected from Camargo, Monterrey, and other Mexican municipalities. This facility has additional recycling capability by separating glass, ferrous, and non-ferrous metals from raw MSW feedstock. The pyrolytic thermal conversion (PTC) process uses pyrolysis technology to convert organic-based wastes into valuable products like pyro-gas, pyro-oil, and char. Over 99 percent of waste processed by PTC will convert to energy and other saleable and usable products. This facility provides a nearly zero-landfill carbon neutral solution to the waste management field.
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    Infection Control through the Work Order Process in Health Care Facilities
    (2020-04-20) Michael, Christopher; Ray, Matt; Goodman, David; Cooney, Elaine
    Construction, demolition, and maintenance projects in the hospital setting and in other health care facilities provide a challenging and rewarding employment opportunity to the construction trades. This type of work is significantly different than in other types of commercial settings in the fact that patient safety through the environment is first and foremost. Working both efficiently and safely maximize process improvement and overall employee satisfaction throughout an organization by understanding the policies and expectations. It also requires a sharing of knowledge through all of the construction trades about complex issues such as infection prevention, containment types, specialty tools, proper dress, and how critical communication is. In 2017, The Joint Commission, a major hospital accrediting body, addressed several issues that relate to construction, maintenance, and demolition. The need to have an Infection Control Risk assessment for work orders to ensure hospital trades are minimizing the risk of spreading infection through health care facilities is a top priority. The Joint Commission does not set out how hospital workers should do their jobs, but it is looking to see ways in which health care facilities take action to adequately address the issue of infections spreading through construction, maintenance, and demolition. Having a clearly defined process in place to address work orders as they come into the computer maintenance management system (CMMS) will help identify the level of infection control needed, the tools, barriers, and specialty items to minimize the risk of exposing patients to infections. The process will include identifying the critical areas of the hospital, the flow of work identification, (regular power tools are not allowed without HEPA filters in certain regions), barriers, and materials, if any, as well as any associated costs.
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    AN INTERNATIONAL ASSESSMENT: TRANSFORMING MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE TO ECONOMICALLY VIABLE ENERGY
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2012-04-13) Zamenian, Hamed; Iseley, Tom; Ray, Matt; Rardin, Jake; Aslan, Bugra
    The world population is increasing daily, and waste is rising proportionally. The increase of the population, health development, economic growth and shifting population from rural life to urban life has made waste for municipalities an infrastructure concern. Currently, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage, is one of the challenging problems for municipalities. There have been three particular ways for discarding MSW: landfilling, burning, and recycling. The usual method for waste disposal has been landfilling which handles 54.3% of produced MSW in U.S. (Environmental Protection Agency, 2010). According to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP),“The increasing volumes of waste being generated would not be a problem if waste was viewed as a resource and managed properly” (2001). We can produce more waste; on the other hand we can generate more energy from that waste. Waste to Energy (WTE) technology is a green opportunity to continue the path of human ingenuity and technological advancement. The WTE goal defines a new solution that can efficiently deal with substantial percentages of waste, while also creating energy as a co-product. This study will evaluate common WTE technologies that are currently available: pyrolysis, gasification, plasma arc gasification, and anaerobic digestion. Pyrolysis, gasification and plasma arc gasification are all thermal decomposition technologies that can treat waste material in elevated temperature conditions; anaerobic digestion is a biological treatment process. Incineration is also a current WTE technology that is classified as a thermal treatment option but it is not environmentally friendly. Also, existing national and international technology providers will be discussed and their technologies in industry will be assessed while considering MSW as a feedstock and energy as a co-product.
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    Staffing the Woodward Academy Housekeeping Team
    (2018-04-09) Owenby, Thomas; Ray, Matt
    The determination of success for a housekeeping department for an educational institution includes both equipping and training the appropriate size staff within the department and meeting established expectations for assigned spaces and buildings. These two items are linked by the amount of space to be cleaned and the level and frequency of the cleaning activities required. Woodward Academy was founded in 1900 in College Park, Georgia. The majority of academic spaces on the campus are less than 20 years old. The primary focus of the housekeeping department on the campus has been the classrooms and the restrooms. The current staffing level for the housekeeping department may not be adequate to meet the needs of the administration and faculty. A facility building and space audit needs to be completed for the campus. There is no record of an audit on file from the previous ten years. Each building on the two campuses located in College Park, GA will be audited, both for cleanable space, and categorization of space. Then, each space will be assigned a frequency of cleaning and a level of cleanliness to attain, using standardized cleanliness level descriptions. These decisions will be made following a survey of the building owner and/or department head with the facilities department. This data, combined with an industry standard space category matrix, will yield a recommended staffing level, based upon the time required to complete routine cleaning activities within each space. Finally, this recommended staffing level will be compared to the current staffing level, to determine the variance. Based upon that variance, recommended changes will be identified and/or recommendations for further investigations will be provided.