It was brought to my attention that pulpwood had a higher rate of consumption in comparison with other natural resources. That is why my objective is to find other materials to stop pulpwood consumption and provide an eco-friendly environment. Through the past month, I have been conducting a lot of research to try to understand the meaning of pulpwood, what products are made from pulpwood, how many pulpwoods are been consumed every year, gathering basic statistics, finding alternative designs, and looking at pulpwood’s material properties. In each section of this research, I noticed one keyword that has been repeated consecutively which is cellulose fiber. At this moment, Cellulose fiber was my main source of knowing and identifying the problem carefully which lead to having a title called increasing production of cellulose fiber. Consequently, after defining the problem, I started to develop the title of the topic “Are we consuming pulpwood?” The problem is the overconsumption of pulpwood and I was interested in finding different materials to stay clear from pulpwood.
After the problem phase, I started to build a research presentation and provide three design possible paths that help me to build concepts and developing ideas. Design paths were: 1) Investigate manufacturing cost, 2) Looking at Properties/attributes of pulpwood and other materials, 3) Looking at the Manufacturing process of both pulpwood and other materials. The intention of doing research presentations is to attract stakeholder’s attention to comment and make feedback from what I have achieved, showing progress, and see which design paths are interesting. The majority of the feedback I have received was Design path two which is looking at properties/attributes. It is interesting because while I was starting to understand and brainstorm these three design paths, I realized Design path 1 and 3 depends on design path 2. Understanding the material properties of pulpwood and other materials is essential to determine the quality, efficiency, and affordability. From there I started to brainstorm materials that can be suitable for the three categories I have mentioned, and the materials are flax, bamboo, fungi mushrooms, and cotton. These four are based on raw materials plant-based also part of a cellulose fiber factor. At this point, I started to look at the life cycle of each of these materials and start comparing them to the product, and started to develop concepts by asking what if. What if question made me analyze and be curious about things that can lead me to create ideas. The concept that I had in mind was what if toilet paper was made out of bamboo. Since bamboo is a renewable resource and eco-friendly to the environment, why not use the opportunity to discover more about it. My second concept would be what if tables were made out of flax fibers that could be biodegradable and sustainable to the environment. The third one was looking at biocomposites materials, still in developing and analyzing the method for this part but hopefully, need to grasp it more. So for these concepts, it is on a based system creating flow charts and brains storming and identifying what other materials that can replace pulpwood. In the following two weeks, my next step would be to explore more and understand each of these materials for looking at mechanical, chemical, and physical properties, is it affordable?, how are there manufacturing cost and the process goes ( Is it time-consuming?), and still sending my research presentation to the stakeholders to get more feedback. In the following figure(1) demonstrates the brainstorming of concepts and how I start to analyze these materials.
Inspiration material board and ideas that lead me to my concepts, The inspiration will not stop and it is going to continue growing.
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