Production of Acetic Acid by Fermentation with Propionibacteria, HR-321, 1993

This project was undertaken jointly with a project supported by the Iowa Corn Promotion Board. Together the projects aimed at producing the organic acids, propionic acid and acetic acid, by fermentation. The impacts were to provide agriculturally-based alternatives to production of these acids, currently produced mainly as petrochemicals. The potentially high-demand use for acetic acid is as the "acetate" in Calcium Magnesium Acetate (CMA), the non-corrosive road deicer. Fermentation was, however, far from being an economically acceptable alternative. Gains were made in this work toward making this a feasible route. These advances included (1) development of a variant strain of propionibacteria capable of producing higher concentrations of acids; (2) comparison of conditions for several ways of cultivating free cells and establishment of the relative benefits of each; (3) achievement of the highest productivity in fermentations using immobilized cells; (4) identification of corn steep liquor as a lower cost substrate for the fermentation; (5) application of a membrane extraction system for acid recovery and reduction of product inhibition; and (6) initial use of more detailed economic analysis of process alternatives to guide in the identification of where the greatest payback potential is for future research. At this point, the fermentation route to these acids using the propionibacteria is technically feasible, but economically unfeasible. Future work with integration of the above process improvements can be expected to lead to further gains in economics. However, such work can not be expected to make CMA a less expensive deicer than common road salt.

Report on a review of State employee grievance processes, settlement agreements entered into by the State and payments made during the period July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2014

Report on a review of State employee grievance processes, settlement agreements entered into by the State and payments made during the period July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2014

Mission-Oriented Dust Control and Surface Improvement Processes for Unpaved Roads, HR-194, 1981

Six subject areas prompted the broad field of inquiry of this mission-oriented dust control and surface improvement project for unpaved roads: • DUST--Hundreds of thousands of tons of dust are created annually by vehicles on Iowa's 70,000 miles of unpaved roads and streets. Such dust is often regarded as a nuisance by Iowa's highway engineers. • REGULATIONS--Establishment of "fugitive dust" regulations by the Iowa DEQ in 1971 has created debates, conferences, legal opinions, financial responsibilities, and limited compromises regarding "reasonable precaution" and "ordinary travel," both terms being undefined judgment factors. • THE PUBLIC--Increased awareness by the public that regulations regarding dust do in fact exist creates a discord of telephone calls, petitions, and increasing numbers of legal citations. Both engineers and politicians are frustrated into allowing either the courts or regulatory agencies to resolve what is basically a professional engineering responsibility. • COST--Economics seldom appear as a tenet of regulatory strategies, and in the case of "fugitive dust," four-way struggles often occur between the highway professions, political bodies, regulatory agencies, and the general public as to who is responsible, what can be done, how much it will cost, or why it wasn't done yesterday. • CONFUSION--The engineer lacks authority, and guidelines and specifications to design and construct a low-cost surf acing system are nebulous, i.e., construct something between the present crushed stone/gravel surface and a high-type pavement. • SOLUTION--The engineer must demonstrate that dust control and surface improvement may be engineered at a reasonable cost to the public, so that a higher degree of regulatory responsibility can be vested in engineering solutions.