Week 6

This week, we have learnt 2 new lessons which are Product Life Cycle and Cradle-to-Cradle Design.

1. What is Product Life Cycle about?

A typical product life cycle consists of 6 stages, which consists of (In ascending order):

• Raw Materials

• Manufacturing

• Packaging

• Distribution

• Use

• Disposal

Figure below shows the summary of the product life cycle.

(Figure 1:Product Life Cycle from Week 6 Product Life Cycle pptx)

In other words, we can also associate with life of living things which make us more understanding about the concept of product life cycle. Furthermore, we can also associate to Birth, Growth and Death.

Figure below shows how life of living things associate with product life cycle.

(Figure 2: Life of living things associate with product life cycle from Week 6 pptx.)

Activity Time❗❗❗:

For the activity, we will need to apply what we have learnt about the product life cycle and apply to our own product.

Table below summarizes what we had done for our product using the knowledge of product life cycle.

(Table 1: Product Life Cycle of Rubber)

Stages	Explanations
Extraction	Rubber plantations cut open the bark of trees.  Sap is collected.  Coagulating chemicals are added.  Water is expelled by rollers.  Rubber is dried then shipped for processing.
Manufacturing	Chemicals are added to stabilize and to vulcanize the rubber.   Rubber is mixed and cooled.  Shaped by rollers or through holes.
Packaging	The manufactured rubber sleeves are stored in a condition where low temperature, low humidity, no direct sunlight, no flammable or corrosive liquid around the rubber sleeves to make sure they are still in good condition.    Usually, the rubber sleeves are covered in a plastic wrap and put them in boxes.
Distribution	Rubber sleeve are transported through vehicles/shipping to sell to consumers.
Usage	To provide grip and comfort for the users who use the vacuum cleaner while doing cleaning.
Disposal	Rubber sleeve is thrown away.    Worn down sleeves can be collected and sent to recycling plants to be recycled.

Here are our group's PLC diagram:

Most of the product falls into Cradle-to-Grave product system. A cradle-to-grave product system minimises the negative impact on the environment mostly by 3R’s which are Reducing, Reusing and Recycling.

This method of recovery is not effective since the used product will going to be disposed.

Therefore, we introduced a new method which is more effective than Cradle-to-Grave product system, which is Cradle-to-Cradle Design.

2. What is Cradle-to-Cradle Design?

Cradle-to-Cradle Design, also known simply as C2C, is a biomimetic approach to the design of products and systems that emulates nature's processes. In other word, the cycle itself will not have an end point.

In the biological cycle of C2C, materials are returned to the biosphere in the form of compost or other nutrients, from which new materials can be created.

Figure below shows the summary of the cradle-to-cradle product design pathways.

(Figure 3: Pathway of Cradle-to-Cradle Design, starting from Production stage. Taken from Cradle-to-Cradle Design pptx,)

                   

There are 3 main principles that are focused on are

1. Nutrients become nutrients again

2. Use of renewable energy.

3. Celebrate Diversity.

Activity Time❗❗❗:

For this activity, we are tasked to Integrate any two C2C design strategies into your chemical product which is Rubber.

Strategy 1: Nutrients become nutrients again. 

Rubber sleeve can be easily at the end of its lifetime be recycled, and reprocessed to become another sleeve. In other way, the disposed rubber can be returned to the natural environment because of its excellent bio-degradability.

 

Strategy 2:  Use as renewable energies. 

Rubber is also one of the renewable sources in the nature. 

Week 6 DONE❗❗❗😂😂😂

Reflection for Week 6:

Ambrose:

We had used so many items in our daily life. What will we do after we are done using those items, of course we will throw it away, isn’t it? Because of that, I can assume that this statement falls on Cradle-to-Grave design. Besides that, we actually introduced a brand new concept which was Cradle-to-Cradle design. From this design, I actually understand that those used items can also be used again, especially used back in the environment. Basically, this design will not have an end point and is highly recommended for a sustainable future.

Joshua: 

With the climate change and changing ecosystems is has become more important for us as chemical engineering students to consider the impacts of our products on the environment in terms of their carbon footprint and their residual impact on the environment at the end of their lifecycle. We learnt how to consider our product's impact this week through first examining the entire life cycle of our product, from the extracting of the raw materials, to production, to usage then to disposal. By doing so we can determine what changes to the design process we can make in terms of materials or components to change the production, usage and disposal to ultimately reduce the negative impact on the environment. The second strategy we learnt built off the first one, with more focus on maintaining the biological cycle of the environment through design, such as using bio-degradable materials, or ones that are easily recycled/repurposed to extend the lifetime of the product or give it a cyclic lifetime.

Yongjie:

In week 6, we learnt about sustainable development, one of the design considerations and how to execute it. There were product life cycle and Cradle-to-Cradle(C2C). Product life cycle talks about the different stages towards the sustainability for the environment while C2C is about how we can improve on the life cycle.

Edmund: