Assistant
Professor, Engineering
and Public Policy and Mechanical
Engineering
Research
in air pollution, renewable energy, combustion, and
indoor air quality.
B.S. (Civil
Engineering) 1990, Stanford University
M.S. (Mechanical Engineering) 1993, and Ph.D. (Mechanical
Engineering) 1996, University of California at Berkeley.
Carnegie
Mellon, 1998-.
Professor
Robinson has interests in the environmental impacts
of energy systems and the transformation of the current
fossil-based economy into one based on renewable energy.
Current research projects include examining the use
of small-scale biomass gasification for rural electrification
in India and measuring air pollutant emissions from
river tugs that move barges through the Pittsburgh
region.
A significant
recent focus of Professor Robinson's research is cofiring
biomass and coal for reducing CO2 emissions from coal-fired
utility boilers. An important goal of this work is
the development of science-based guidelines to assist
the utility industry in the implementation of cofiring.
These guidelines address the impacts of cofiring on
power plant operational and environmental performance,
and are being formulated through a combination of
theoretical analysis, fundamental laboratory-scale
experiments, and utility-scale test burns.
Professor
Robinson is also studying emissions of fine particulate
matter from combustion systems. One project is developing
advanced sampling techniques to simulate the mixing
and chemical processes that control fine particulate
formation in power plant plumes. These techniques
will be used to characterize emissions from coal-fired
power plants in the Pittsburgh region.
Representative
Publications
A. L.
Robinson, H. Junker, S. G. Buckley, G. Sclippa and
L. L. Baxter, "Interactions Between Coal and Biomass
When Cofiring" 27th Symposium (International) on Combustion,
The Combustion Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, 1999, pp.
1351-1359.
A. L.
Robinson, S. G. Buckley and L. L. Baxter, "In Situ
Measurements of the Thermal Conductivity of Ash Deposits,"
27th Symposium (International) on Combustion, The
Combustion Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, 1999, pp. 1727-1735.
A. L.
Robinson and R. G. Sextro, "Radon Entry into Houses
Driven by Atmospheric Pressure Fluctuations," Environmental
Science & Technology, vol. 31, no. 6, 1997, pp.
1742-1748. |
