ERI - BIOFUELS LABORATORY

Description

The Environmental Research Institute was established as an inter-disciplinary research institute in 2000 to facilitate and support environmental, marine and energy based research at University College Cork, Ireland. The Institute brings together expertise in the biological, chemical and environmental sciences as well as environmental engineering, energy and environmental law. The aims of the Institute are to foster collaborative, multidisciplinary environmental based research through a number of key research thematic areas, to train post-graduate research students for careers in the environmental sciences and engineering and, to facilitate the transfer of technology to industry. The Institute currently has a total of 64 Principal Investigators, 70 non-tenured researchers and 65 postgraduate students involved in research activities in the Environment, Marine and Energy areas.

Research at the Institute is focused on providing knowledge-based options to address major societal challenges and in developing and strengthening Ireland’s leadership in eco-innovation and innovation in policy and governance. Since its inception the ERI has been acutely aware of the need to bridge the gap between research, innovation and commercialisation. To help achieve this the Institute continues to foster a broad approach to environmental research that ranges from “blue skies” research aimed at new knowledge creation, to applied research designed to generate solutions to specific environmental challenges through to contract-based work for industry and Government bodies.
Specification
  • Pilot scale anaerobic digestion reactors for carrying out biofuel trials
  • 200m2 aquaculture tank laboratory and holding area
  • Category 2 Laboratory
  • Atmospheric chemistry simulation chambers
  • Controlled temperature rooms
  • X-Ray/Photo laboratories
  • Clean rooms
  • Tissue culture room
Services
Overlooking the River Lee, and close to the UCC campus, the Environmental Research Institute building has 3,000m2 of customised laboratories, pilot trial space, environmental control rooms, office space and two seminar rooms with the capacity to house over 100 researchers. It has been built to the highest standards of contemporary sustainable design with many sustainable energy features such as solar panels, geothermal heat pumps and heat recovery systems. The entire building is part of a sustainable building research project (a “living experiment”) run by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCC; it serves as a full-scale test bed looking at not only the way green buildings are designed but also how they perform and the methods used to assess this. The ERI building has a number of specialised laboratory facilities including:
  • Pilot scale anaerobic digestion reactors for carrying out biofuel trials
  • 200m2 aquaculture tank laboratory and holding area
  • Category 2 Laboratory
  • Atmospheric chemistry simulation chambers
  • Controlled temperature rooms
  • X-Ray/Photo laboratories
  • Clean rooms
  • Tissue culture room
The ERI Building contains over €4 million worth of dedicated analytical equipment and instrumentation for supporting research in the facility. It also has a wide range of instrumentation for carrying out material characterisation, atmospheric chemistry, water analysis including x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope, mobile air quality monitoring units with aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometer (ATOFMS), colony picketing robots, ion and gas chromatographs.
Contact

Contact: Paul Bolger

Title: ERI Manager

Tel: +353 (0)21 490 1931

Email: eri@ucc.ie

Web: www.ucc.ie/en/eri/

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