Project Team: Shubham Borole

My name is Shubham Borole. I am a graduate student at Michigan Technological University pursuing Master's degree in Chemical Engineering and I'm a research team member in MTU's Center for Environmentally Benign Functional Materials. I come from Vapi, Gujarat, India, a city evolving as a chemical & industrial hub. Growing up in such atmosphere, along with some family background, drew me towards chemical engineering studies. I completed my bachelors degree from Government Engineering College, Valsad (Gujarat, India) and worked for a year gaining experience in industry.

At Michigan Tech, I joined Dr. Gerard Caneba for research studies concerning oil spill control using surfactants. This included studies of foaming characteristics, dispersion effects in presence of crude oil and toxicity comparisons. I have just been introduced to Industrial Archaeology, specifically problems concerned with preservation of archaeological artifacts. I will apply my experience with supercritical carbon dioxide extraction at high pressures to museum and archaeology problems. This is a very exciting project since it involves applying chemical engineering to problems in art and history. Also, I get an opportunity to work and communicate with people from different educational disciplines. I hope to play my part in this project and supporting my colleagues to the fullest extent.


Connect with Shubham on LinkedIn.

Project Team: Stephanie Tankersley

My name is Stephanie Tankersley and I am a fourth year undergraduate student at Michigan Technological University. I am majoring in Materials Science and Engineering and minoring in Polymer Science and Engineering. I'm also completing a concentration in Michigan Tech's Enterprise Program. My interests are in sports and outdoor activities; eco-friendly processes; and textiles, polymers, and composite materials engineering. More about my interests and experience can be found on my LinkedIn account.

I'm new to the Supercritical Team. So far I have done research on polymers in conservation as well as readings about other supercritical treatments. I am very excited to start the process of experimentation with our various artifacts and I will be taking lots of photos and recording my findings along the way!

Project Team: Gerard Caneba

I am pleased to introduce my chief collaborator on this project!  Gerard Caneba and I had not worked together before this study, but when I read an article about the use of supercritical carbon dioxide treatments to dry waterlogged archaeological artifacts, I started looking for someone at Michigan Tech than could help me understand that process. Gerry and I spoke and something in our discussions sparked his interest.

Dr. Caneba is a chemical engineer and is the director of Michigan Tech’s Center for Environmentally Benign Functional Materials.  His expertise includes both polymer composites and precipitation polymerization.  Dr. Caneba’s main research involves the process of free-radical retrograde-precipitation polymerization (FRRPP) and the use of these polymers in oil recovery and remediation, adhesive formulation, wood preservation, copper ore processing, silicone formulation, carbon nanotube/polymer composites, and many other applications.  He has published many research articles and recently two monographs with Springer Verlag: Free-Radical Retrograde-Precipitation Polymerization (FRRPP): Novel Concept, Processes, Materials, and Energy Aspects (Caneba 2010) and Emulsion Free-Radical Retrograde-Precipitation Polymerization (Caneba and Dar 2011).

Gerry and I have assembled a small team of undergraduate and graduate students at MTU to work on this project. Over the next few posts, the students will introduce themselves and I will continue to write updates on aspects of the background for our research project.

Want to connect with Gerry? Try LinkedIn, Pivot (Community of Science)

Fire at the Quincy Smelter site

Last night and early this morning, several local fire crews responded to an emergency call about a structure fire at the site of the historic Quincy Smelting Works.  The smelter, built in 1898, is the last copper smelter standing in the Keweenaw Peninsula. I have heard many people claim that this is one of last and best preserved nineteenth and early twentieth century copper smelters in the world.

The buildings that burned were the Carpenter Shop and it's Lumber Shed.  The smelter blog included pictures taken of these two buildings before the fire, along with a description of their history:

The Quincy Smelter's Carpenter Shop and Lumber Shed from the blog: http://quincysmelter.wordpress.com

More photographs and text about the support buildings were posted by the Copper Country Explorer:
http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/2009/12/the-support-buildings-p1/

The fire started at about 11 pm on Saturday night.  Due to it's location on the water in Ripley, the fire was visible from all over downtown Houghton.  Here is the "stub" story in the Mining Gazette:

The Daily Mining Gazette's photo in their coverage of the fire.

Photos of the event are finding their way to media sites like Flickr.com.

This morning I went down to see the damage.  I am very grateful to the firefighters for working so hard to save the Stock House, which was scorched by the heat, and the other buildings in the immediate vicinity of the Carpenter Shop.  Here are some pictures from my cell phone camera of the ruined buildings this afternoon:

Henshaw's thoughts

Marc Henshaw wrote some interesting thoughts inspired by a recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  He was trying to raise awareness about the impending demolition of Andrew Carnegie's Pittsburgh Locomotive Works, but he also made some interesting observations about the challenges which heritage preservation poses for industrial (and post-industrial) communities.

The Pittsburg Post-Gazette article:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10040/1034454-437.stm

Archaeology Dude's discussion:
http://archaeologydude.blogspot.com/2010/02/industrial-archaeology-race-against.html