Bioenvironmental Engineering Research

Bioenvironmental Engineering is the application of engineering principles and design to natural resources and environmental protection.  At LSU-BAE, several of our research labs focus on the following specializations in bioenvironmental engineering:

  • Bioenergy / Renewable Fuels
  • Water Resources
  • Precision Agriculture

Bioenergy (REEBUB)

Renewable Energy, Environmental, Byproduct Utilization & Biosensors Lab

The REEBUB group designs solutions for bioenergy and environmental applications:

  • Use of solar stills for cost-effective drying of wet plant biomass and animal wastes
  • Low-cost biomass gasification research for on-farm use and hydrothermal liquefaction to convert wet biomass slurries (wood chips, animal wastes) into bio-oils
  • Production of biodiesel from a variety of feedstocks using an integrated approach (from harvesting techniques, storage and post-harvest processing)
  • Extraction and trans-esterification of oils into biodiesel using microwave technology

Principal Investigators: Chandra Theegala, Ph.D. and Dorin Boldor, Ph.D.

Water Resources

Designing systems for irrigation, drainage and flow erosion applications.

Projects include irrigation applications with energy efficiency and water conservation improvements, water-quality modeling applications and investigation of drainage-water management system effects on water quality in agricultural systems where elevation changes are low.

Principal Investigator:

Stacia Davis
Red River Research Station
Phone: 318-741-7430 / Fax: 318-741-7433
sdavis@agcenter.lsu.edu

Precision Agriculture

Precision Ag integrates geo-spatial sensors, electronics and geographic information systems (GIS) in farming applications for the analysis and development of new agricultural equipment and techniques.

Testing and performance evaluation of yield monitors, variable-rate application systems (aerial and ground) GPS suitability for aerial application, time-delay issues on variable application and definition of quality issues on variable-rate application are explored.

LAIS Weather

Louisiana Agriclimatic Information System (LAIS) is a network of 23 automated weather stations operated by the

Each station consists of a datalogger that observes several electronic instruments on a 3-second interval. Output is generated by the datalogger:

Every 3 seconds (This data is normally not archived)
Every minute
Hourly
Daily, at midnight
Daily, at 7am

Principal Investigator:

Randy Price, Ph.D., P.E. Central Region
Phone: 318-427-4424 / Fax: 318-473-6503
rprice@agcenter.lsu.edu

 

LSU