Project III – XE500 Engineering Systems

Project Aim

– Develop the students’ skills in resolving complex engineering problems across disciplines and involving wider real-world issues beyond the technical aspects.

– Develop the students’ professional working practice, including career planning.

 

Requirements

– Must include a means of identification, retrieval and disposal of plastics (with sizes ranging from macroscale to nanoscale) 

– Over an area equal or more than 10 km^2 from remote oceans, seas and/or rivers. 

– System needs to be environmentally robust and sustainable. 

– The system needs to fall within initiatives, policies and legislative rules in the area it operates.  

– There must be a way to quantify the impact and efficiency of our system. 

 

Project Overview

In this project we are tasked to design and develop a solution to plastic pollution, we have chosen to provide aid in Indonesia more specifically the river of Citarum. This is due to the level of plastic pollution found here with thousands of factories along the river known to dump toxic waste and plastic into the river. This kind of behaviour has led to a previously flourishing natural habitat, become a toxic wasteland of dark water and single use plastic goods. My role in this group project includes; research, concept design and legislation.

Where initially we wanted to focus on microplastics, a hidden killer, in Nigeria. We consequently realised we would be better off focusing on a larger scale problem globally, as much as 80% of plastic pollution in our oceans originates from rivers, with the Citarum being one of the most polluted rivers in the world. Due to the toxicity of the river and the dependence by the locals for irrigation, cleaning and drinking water, there are a reported 50,000 deaths each year alone as a consequence. Its level of pollution is so great that struggling fishermen must wall off small square areas to fish, as plastic lays like a blanket smothering the water’s surface.

Project Management/Approach

For the management and progression of this project we will follow the V-Model as shown in fig.1. The V-Model is a strict linear design plan that relies on full completion of specified task with corresponding actions, normally testing. The model accounts for the whole life cycle of a product. Originally developed by the commissioning state of Germany as an approach for development of systems projects the model has undergone developments throughout the years, with the newest model, the V-Model XT (extreme tailoring) applicable for an extensive variation of projects.

Key Risk Issues

To ensure this project is a success it was important to identify key risk issues that could bring unwanted problems from the design and project management phase to the operational stage.

Initial Research (previous location)

Given that we changed the location of our engineering solution my initial research focuses on the wrong content. Despite this I want to include it below to show you the reason for our choosing of this location. It was important to undertake this research to gain knowledge and insight of the problem we were trying to solve as well as informing ourselves of any relevant technology already in use in a similar context.

Microplastics:

• Estimated 300 million tonnes of plastic is produced every year, with an estimated 14 million tonnes ending up in the sea. (International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2021)
• Microplastics can be found in; clothes, cosmetics, cleaning products with one washing load releasing around 700,000 fibres. (Williams, 2016)
• Too small for many/most filtration systems. 
• Prevalent in 93% of water bottles in a study of 259 samples, the samples being some of the highest selling bottles globally (Evian, San Pellegrino etc) 
• On average we consume 5g of plastic every week – the equivalent to a credit card. 

 

Microplastics in rivers:

• Previously thought to have quickly travelled downstream to the sea, new research from Jan 13, 2022, shows abundant accumulation of microplastics in the riverbed. (Moran, 2022)
• This is due to a process called hyporheic exchange, known as ‘the mixing of surface and shallow subsurface water through porous sediment surrounding a river and is driven by spatial and temporal variations in channel characteristics (streambed pressure, bed mobility, alluvial volume, and hydraulic conductivity).’ (Tonina and Buffington, 2009)
• Slow movement out of rivers increase risk to aquatic wildlife. 

 

Microplastic extraction:

• Fionn Ferreira at just 12 years old, discovered that oil could attract plastics in water thanks to the witnessing of a small oil spill. (Gerretsen, 2021)
• He then decided to mix vegetable oil with an iron oxide powder to create a ferrofluid. (Gerretsen, 2021)
• Ferrofluids attach to microplastics and using a magnet they can be separated from the water taking the microplastics with it. (Gerretsen, 2021)
• A later experiment with 5000 tests showed an 87% effectiveness rate. (Gerretsen, 2021)
• Another method of extraction can be using filtration, with a carbon block faucet filter, although boasting an 100% effectiveness rate I am not yet sure whether using it for a non-tap water use for natural rivers and seas would be detrimental.

Concept Design (Hydroelectric Plastic Collection Dam)

For this task our project leader gave each member the team the task of creating one concept design solution. My concept utilized the current of the river to power turbines creating electricity for the water jets that create turbulence, forcing the surface waste to the river bank. Collection areas can then recirculate spilt water from the river and take the plastic waste out of the water towards waste storage facilities. The concept should be self-powered using the current of the river and should use turbines safe for local wildlife.

 

My responsibilities (Legislation/Standards)

After swapping locations we were behind schedule and the roles and responsibilities were redistributed, with less team members on local research for the location. I was given the responsibility of looking into the legislation, permits/licencing, and international building standards.

Legislation

My role within the project will be looking into the legislation involved in providing aid in this context, for example; who are the land owners, where does permission come from to install our solution. To begin this process I have begun research into licences and permits, within the area, necessary for the installation of our product. I have also sent an email to the West Java Government contact email, as seen below, after looking through the licensing and permit sections of their website I could not find an appropriate licence/permit.

 

After receiving a reply from the contact email I was redirected to another website/instagram account in a further chase for the correct permit and licensing required. As a result I have directly messaged the instagram page to enquire the correct legal procedure in providing our engineering solution. After talking with the environment conservation organisation tasked with cleaning up the river, I have discovered that they have the power to hand out permits and it is down to us to liaise with them. We have to ensure we do not get in their way. When looking into the licensing, I firstly went to the Government webpage for West Java. However, after not being able to find any appropriate licenses on that site, I decided to look into British licensing, on ‘GOV.uk’, for similar purposes as a reference point.

 

New businesses in the UK who are responsible for the transportation, trade, or brokering of waste, created by other businesses and households must register for a Tier 3 carrier licence, at a cost of £154 every 3 years. (see Fig.5.)

 

Standards

For our product to be a viable and safe solution it is essential that we ensure our product is constructed and designed to follow all the necessary building and material standards. As our solution will be operating internationally, I will be following the international standards (ISO). They are more widely accepted and reduce the barriers/time for international trade, meaning our product could be more easily used in many countries worldwide.

The specific standards we will be conforming to are the ISO:23605 product specification standards. Within this guide are the standards that we will have to conform to, here is a list of such standards;

– Lettering (ISO: 3098)​

– Tolerances Code on Linear sizes (ISO: 286 – 1+2)​

– Geometrical Tolerances (ISO:5458)​

– Dimensional Tolerancing (ISO: 14405) ​

– Surface Texture Indication (ISO: 3274)​

– Assessment for surface textures (ISO: 4288)​

– Part References (ISO: 6433)​

– CAD Lines (ISO: 128-21)​

– Projection Methods (ISO: 5456)​

– Kinematics Diagrams (ISO: 3952 – 1)​

– Document Management (ISO: 11442)​

– Graphical Symbols for Diagrams (ISO:14617)​

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Waste Disposal

– The plastic bottles we collect will be sent to a PET flake recycling facility 30km away from our desired location along the river, located just 4km away from a river at its closest point we could transport the bottles initially by boat then truck or just via truck, dependent on costs and time. ​

– Plastic Energy LTD have five chemical recycling plants, they will use patented technology to chemically process single use non-recyclable plastics.​

– The process turns the plastics into TACOIL which can be used for the production of new plastics or for low-carbon alternative fuels. 

– In conjunction with the West Java government the company, Plastic Energy LTD, have five chemical recycling plants located in; West Bandung, Bogor, Cirebon, Tasikmalaya and closest to us Bakasi.​

 

Project Subsystems

Pipe

For the pipe in the system it was important to consider both strength and durability. This is due to the toxic pH (up to 14) of the Citarum River being corrosive to some materials, namely; aluminium, copper and stainless steel. We looked into the potential use of PVC however, over time the material becomes brittle and can be prone to cracking. We therefore made the decision on using Galvanized Steel as the protective zinc layer resists alkaline corrosion from reaching the steel surface, but this is not permanent and will need replacement after a certain amount of time. The pressure within the pipe will also be a contributing factor into wear and degradation as we will be operating at 4 bar, testing and analysis shows that the steel pipe we will use can operate up to 8 bar, therefore having a factor of safety of 2<.

 

Power Source and Air Compressor

As our product will be fighting a strong current and operating at high pressures we will need a power source to cope with those demands. Some potential options for our system could include:

• Wired electricity line – High installation cost/time.
• Solar Power – Low relative power generation and high cost but good environmental sustainability.
• Petrol/diesel Generator – Bad carbon output and loud but relatively low cost.

The air compressor for our system can be bought in from a manufacturer, with a suitable rotary screw compressor running on 5.5Kw of power. For our device we therefore decided to go for eleven 500W solar panels that require 20m^2 of space to operate, as this will therefore produce the power needed for operation.

Collection/Storage System

For the collection of waste our system will be using the ‘Versi-cat’, made by Water Witch. The electrically powered boat contains a cargo storage area that can collect up to 1 tonne of macroplastics, and being electric has very low/zero emissions. The boat can be purchased at a cost of $10,000 US.

 

Bill of Materials (BOM)

 

System Costings

Working as a Team

The success of this project heavily hinged on the cooperative nature and coherent communication as a team, with the success of the project pivotal on us all staying on the same page. Clarity can often be lost through texts, it was therefore imperative that we held regular group calls and face to face meet ups. This was no challenge as we met together for a three hour session each Friday, along with usually one extra meet up in our own time to assess progress and the completion of others tasks. I missed two weeks of work at the beginning of the project but being confident in a group setting, I found it easy to join in conversation straight away and felt as though I helped to knit sides of the group together.

Although there were unforeseen problems along the way, namely changing our location from Nigeria to Indonesia which set us back a couple weeks progress, we managed to maintain steady and consistent progress throughout the project. As the project developed we gained unity as a group, largely thanks to meeting up outside of allotted hours and all possessing a desire for success. Although we all had our roles and responsibilities it did not stop us from collaborating over certain areas of the project, for example we all contributed concept ideas and helped one another when we struggled to find information or when carrying out tasks. Getting ahead of schedule by the time of the formative presentation also helped to ease the pressure and stress of the project.

If I was to do this again I would ensure that we were all on the same page from the start and I would also try to instigate team building exercises to build an early bond. From which our best work can come to fruition and we can quickly learn each of the team members interests, strengths and weaknesses. Knowing your team better and being closer as a group also helps to open up a better flow of communication.

 

Final Presentation

Linked below is the full recording from our groups final presentation split into 3 parts due to upload size issues, and with a special thanks to Ian Griffin my team member who supplied me with these recordings.

 

Bibliography