Matching Items (6)
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- All Subjects: Sustainability
Description
With a rapidly decreasing amount of resources for construction, wood and bamboo have been suggested as renewable materials for increased use in the future to attain sustainability. Through a literature review, bamboo and wood growth, manufacturing and structural attributes were compared and then scored in a weighted matrix to determine the option that shows the higher rate of sustainability. In regards to the growth phase, which includes water usage, land usage, growth time, bamboo and wood showed similar characteristics overall, with wood scoring 1.11% higher than bamboo. Manufacturing, which captures the extraction and milling processes, is experiencing use of wood at levels four times those of bamboo, as bamboo production has not reached the efficiency of wood within the United States. Structural use proved to display bamboo’s power, as it scored 30% higher than wood. Overall, bamboo received a score 15% greater than that of wood, identifying this fast growing plant as the comparatively more sustainable construction material.
ContributorsThies, Jett Martin (Author) / Ward, Kristen (Thesis director) / Halden, Rolf (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems & Operations Engineering Prgm (Contributor) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Eng Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Lignin is an energy dense polymer that forms the secondary layer within a plants cell wall. Within the cell wall, lignin acts as a matrix material, providing structural integrity to the plant. This polymer is often a byproduct from harvesting cellulose and has traditionally been used in resins, insulation, and adhesives. Recent research has indicated that lignin’s hierarchical structure may offer advantage in dissipating fracture energy while its fibrous composite arrangement prevents crack growth. Because of lignin’s unique chemical characteristics, different formulations and combinations with resins and bioplastics using lignin has started to make way for a new cost-effective and non-polluting alternative for the current petroleum-based plastics used globally. The goal of the following project was to develop a material that could show resilience in replacing the petroleum-based plastic used in small format items whilst also demonstrating high efficacy in biodegradation.
ContributorsScott, Daniel (Author) / Fehler, Michelle (Thesis director) / Reeves, James Scott (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Industrial, Systems & Operations Engineering Prgm (Contributor)
Created2022-05
DescriptionCreation of a biodegradable phone case business, "Green Halo Cases".
ContributorsPollard, Oscar (Author) / Rakolta, Mikayla (Co-author) / Curtin, Erika (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Lee, Christopher (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Industrial, Systems & Operations Engineering Prgm (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Given their manufacturing versatility, plastics have fundamentally changed commercial consumerism. Unfortunately, two of the largest drawbacks to current plastics on the market is their dependency on fossil fuels and their lack of circular recyclability. In this paper, the focus will be on the latter issue. Circular recyclability can be described as the idea of minimizing waste through its reformation back into a commodity. Currently, the primary method of recycling plastics, mechanical recycling, can only be achieved through melting and reshaping plastic for reuse. A significant drawback to this method is the reduction in chain molecular weight and subsequent loss of mechanical integrity through multiple reheating cycles. Chemical recycling provides an alternative where the polymer is broken down through chemically reactive sites, allowing the material to be recycled a theoretically infinite number of times and maintain its mechanical properties.
Polyethylene, one of the largest classes of industrially produced plastic, does not have any commercially relevant chemically recyclable derivatives. The structure of polyethylene is primarily composed of long, nonpolar hydrocarbon chains that provide the material’s signature tough property. To make a material that can be depolymerizable for chemical recycling, polar ester functional groups must be added throughout the chain, allowing for chain scission by hydrolysis. Unfortunately, while the incorporation of ester functionality into polyethylene has been studied previously, material strength decreases as a result of this modification, sacrificing the integrity of the final product.
Herein, I propose the incorporation of nucleobase pairings into the ester-containing polyethylene, which will add supramolecular hydrogen bonding reinforcements to improve the mechanical performance while maintaining chemical recyclability. This addition to the polyethylene backbone will be achieved by the synthesis of a ureido cytosine (UCy) diol, which contains 4 complementary hydrogen bonding sites for enhanced intermolecular forces between polyethylene chains.
ContributorsChase, Timothy (Author) / Long, Timothy (Thesis director) / Barker, Charlotte (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Industrial, Systems & Operations Engineering Prgm (Contributor) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Within recent years, the drive for increased sustainability within large corporations has drastically increased. One critical measure within sustainability is the diversion rate, or the amount of waste diverted from landfills to recycling, repurposing, or reselling. There are a variety of different ways in which a company can improve their diversion rate, such as repurposing paper. A conventional method would be to simply have a recycling bin for collecting all paper, but the concern for large companies then becomes a security issue as confidential papers may not be safe in a traditional recycling bin. Salt River Project (SRP) has tackled this issue by hiring a third-party vendor (TPV) and having all paper placed into designated, secure shredding bins whose content is shredded upon collection and ultimately recycled into new material. However, while this effort is improving their diversion, the question has arisen of how to make the program viable in the long term based on the costs required to sustain it. To tackle this issue, this thesis will focus on creating a methodology and sampling plan to determine the appropriate level of a third-party recycling service required and to guide efficient bin-sizing solutions. This will in turn allow for SRP to understand how much paper waste is being produced and how accurately they are being charged for TPV services.
ContributorsHolladay, Amy E. (Author) / Escobedo, Adolfo (Thesis director) / Kucukozyigit, Ali (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems & Operations Engineering Prgm (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
DescriptionCreation of a biodegradable phone case business, "Green Halo Cases"
ContributorsCurtin, Erika (Author) / Rakolta, Mikayla (Co-author) / Pollard, Oscar (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Lee, Christopher (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Industrial, Systems & Operations Engineering Prgm (Contributor)
Created2024-05