Facilities-CPP's Biodiesel Group

Members of the Biodiesel group have access to University facilities in several colleges and departments. Engineering facilities are used for developing prototypes for a multitude of processes invoved in biodiesel production. The "Green Team" at the Lyle center has a biodiesel reactor which produces fuel for campus vechicles, an algae lab and ponds feed by waste water for growing algae and developing other sustainable methods for waste water treatment. The Chemistry and Biological Sciences Departments provide lab space and equiptment for the algae biodiesel project where basic research on algal growth and lipid biosynthesis are studied and chemical analysis of the products are analyzed. The Department of Agronomy has a variety of field sites and equiptment for growing, harvesting and processing plants used for biodiesel production.
	The John T Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies researches and demonstrates a wide array of regenerative strategies, including low-energy architecture, energy production technology, water treatment, organic agriculture, ecological restoration and sustainable community development. The Center actively supports research and outreach by Cal Poly Pomona faculty, students and staff that directly supports the mission of advancing principles of environmentally sustainable living. The Center offers space for conducting research projects and outreach programs, provides resources through their faculty fellowship program, and offers logistical support for facilitating grants and contracts. The Lyle Center is home to the BioDiesel reactor!
AGRIscapes Center to Promote Agricultural and Environmental Literacy Located on forty acres at Cal Poly Pomona, AGRIscapes seeks to integrate and showcase farming and urban landscaping practices that are sustainable— environmentally beneficial, economically viable, and technologically sound. AGRIscapes promotes agricultural and environmental literacy through research, education, and demonstrations of alternative methods to grow food, conserve water, reduce energy needs and recycle agricultural and urban waste for resource efficiency and community enhancement.
	Chemistry: The Chemistry department has a variety of equiptment for analysis including spectrophotometers, spectrofluorophotometers, FT-IR Spectrometers, Gas Chromatograph/Mass Detectors and several gas chromatographs with TCD and FID detectors. Dr. Hossein Ahmadzadeh, PI of the *Algae To BioDiesel* Project, has a research lab equipped with specialized equipment including systems for Capillary Electrophoresis, a custom-built Capillary Electrophoresis unit with a Post-Column Sheath-Flow Cuvette, Laser-Induced Fluorescence Detection System with a 488-nm Ar-ion laser, photomultiplier tubes and Opto-Mechanical parts. The lab also has an inverted Fluorescence Microscope for viewing micoscopic algae equipped with a Single Cell Injector and 3-D micromanipulator for isolating single cells.
The Biological Sciences Department has modern microbiology facilities for cultivation of algal strains and analysis of growth, lipid production, microscopy and molecular methods for species identification. The department also has equipment to measure environmental paramenters important in lipid production including light, salinity, pH, and nutrients.