Week 6 Blog Entry

 Reflection:

In week 6, we learnt another product design considerations beside MFD and DFM which was sustainable development. This lesson covers about product life cycle and cradle-to-cradle design for our chemical product. It is important to design a product that will not cause adverse reactions or impact on the environment. To do this, we need to design sustainability which is to consider the environmental, social and economic impacts from the initial phase to the end phase of the product (aka product life cycle). A typical product life cycle consists of 6 stages and it starts with raw materials which will undergo manufacturing to become the product. After, it will be packed into boxes and distributed for users/consumers. As the consumers use the product, the product will age and hence will be disposed. As this is a cycle, there should be a link from disposal (last stage) to raw materials (first stage). However, in a typical product life cycle, there is no link and hence cradle-to-cradle design comes into the process of designing to give the link between disposal and raw materials. In other words, cradle-to-cradle design helps us to convert the waste products back into raw materials so that there is a constant cycle. As each stage of the product life cycle may impact the environment, to minimize this, we can consider some principles for sustainable development. These are selecting sustainable raw materials (less toxic & hazardous), raw materials must be well thought through (compositions will affect waste reuse, recycle or disposal), maximizing raw materials use to have zero waste and modularization.

Most of the product life cycles fall into cradle-to-grave (C2G) system where the raw materials are cradled, manufactured, used then ends up in the landfills (graves). A C2G system minimizes the negative impact on the environment by means of 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) however this impact on the environment is minimal as we cannot recover 100% of the raw materials. Hence a better approach, cradle-to-cradle design is made to recover all wastes. This is a biological cycle which consists of 3 principles which are nutrients become nutrients again, use of renewable energies and celebrate diversity.

The first activity we did in class was to identify and classify the product life cycle of papers.

From these, we have explained our product life cycle and integrated the sustainable approach of C2C in designing our chemical product, self-watering plant as shown below in activities 2 and 3:

Idea: A system that cycles filtered water using a solar powered pump

Main components of the chemical product

- Water Filter

- Solar Panel

- Water Pump

Activity 2: Product Life Cycle

1.     Construct a product life cycle of your chemical product.

References:

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2.     Adamson, A. (n.d.). Know your water pump materials. [online] www.absolutewaterpumps.com. Available at: https://www.absolutewaterpumps.com/blog/know-your-water-pump-materials/ [Accessed 27 May 2021].

3.     Desotec.com. (2019). Recycling and reactivation of activated carbon | Desotec. [online] Available at: https://www.desotec.com/en/solutions/recycling-and-reactivation-activated-carbon [Accessed 27 May 2021].

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8.     Madehow.com. (2014). How copper is made - material, used, processing, steps, product, Raw Materials. [online] Available at: http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Copper.html [Accessed 27 May 2021].

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11.  Today, I. (2020). Everything You Need to Know About Bronze Casting - Industry Today %. [online] Industry Today. Available at: https://industrytoday.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-bronze-casting/#:~:text=Bronze%20is%20an%20alloy%20that [Accessed 27 May 2021].

12.  WCP Online. (2011). Activated Carbon: Modern Advances for an Ancient Technology. [online] Available at: https://wcponline.com/2011/06/24/activated-carbon-modern-advances-for-an-ancient-technology/#:~:text=Simply%20put%2C%20carbon%20is%20an [Accessed 28 May 2021].

13.  www.desotec.com. (n.d.). Raw materials of activated carbon | Desotec. [online] Available at: https://www.desotec.com/en/carbonology/carbonology-academy/raw-materials-activated-carbon#:~:text=The%20most%20commonly%20used%20raw [Accessed 27 May 2021].

14.  www.tomago.com.au. (n.d.). About Aluminium. [online] Available at: https://www.tomago.com.au/about-us/about-aluminium#:~:text=Alumina%20and%20bauxite%20are%20the [Accessed 27 May 2021].