Emission Reduction Research Center

The Emission Reduction Research Center (ERRC) is a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center dedicated to research in Pollution Prevention in all environmental media, but with a particular concern with air emission reduction. ERRC is organized around clusters of companies in specific manufacturing areas. The initial cluster represents the batch chemical processing industry and has a high proportion of membership by the pharmaceutical industry. Other clusters under development include the ordnance industry and the composite plastics industry. ERRC operates as a consortium of four universities - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, and Pennsylvania State University, and NJIT. The research program is funded by the industrial membership, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology, and benefits from cost sharing by the participating universities. ERRC expects to attract a diversity of industry groups, as well as government support, because of its unique blend of planned, industrially relevant research in: systems analysis, particularly artificial intelligence (AI) learning systems, and specific common interest engineering technologies relevant to one or more participating industry groups. Coordinated research in these two areas is expected to create novel technology applications of improved process design and manufacturing operations, benefiting both manufacturing costs and emission performance. The built- in systems approach is expected to guide the decision making process for research focus, and technology implementation in manufacturing and regulatory decisions. The current research program within the batch chemical processing cluster addresses issues including: separations, solvent replacement, VOC containment, equipment cleaning, and process related AI projects. Industrial membership totals 11 and is projected to be 15 by the end of 1995. The 1994-1995 research budget is $1.8 million. One objective of ERRC is to provide a common ground for industries and regulatory agencies to develop sound technical approaches to meet the environmental needs of both groups through a pollution prevention emphasis. Return to theCenter For Environmental Engineering And Science Homepage