ENG1012 Engineering Design

Week 4
Chemical Engineering
Sustainable Design
Working in teams

Prof Nicoleta Maynard

The Engineering Design Team

McCahan et al.
Acknowledgement of Country

We wish to acknowledge the people of the

Kulin Nations, on whose land Monash
University operates.

We pay our respects to their Elders, past,

present and emerging.

Online attendees may be based elsewhere,

so we pay our respects to Traditional
Owners of the land from wherever you may
be joining us.
Your journey so far…
and how things fit together

https://flux.qa/ZTFYQA (12-2pm)

https://flux.qa/A5XR45 (6-8pm)
Design Thinking: ‘Double Dimond’ Process Model
Explore the Decide what Explore Decide what
problem needs to be done possibilities to do
Background
• Understand the problem Define the final solution
• Factors that affect the problem • Consider the treatment stages Final Design
Define the Problem
directly and indirectly • Consider appropriate unit operations Create a solution to the
Design Requirements
• Who is involved? Who has a stake in • Possible expansion problem that meets the
• Constraints
the problems (for and against)? • Sustainability issues design requirements
• Criteria
• What do these stakeholders want? • Cost issues
• What factors constrain the project?

Divergent Divergent Convergent

Convergent
thinking thinking thinking
thinking

1.Investigate the problem before investigating the solution (Project Background)

2.Listen to understand, not to reply (Stakeholders)
3.Before you solve it, you must define it (Design Requirements: constraints & criteria)
4.What is the bottom line? (Flowsheet, Unit Operations, Sustainability)
 Humanitarian
Contextual (real, relevant)

Guided learning
Construct
your own
knowledge

Construct your
own knowledge

Self-directed learning
Collaborative Collaborative Guided learning
OWN TIME PRACTICAL CLASSES WORKSHOPS
Introducing our Guest Speakers
Chemical Engineering

https://flux.qa/ZTFYQA (12-2pm)

https://flux.qa/A5XR45 (6-8pm)
Sustainable Design
Society/Cultural
Sustainable engineering: • Living standard • Religion
• Education • Customs

“must” OR “should” ?
• Jobs • Traditions

Social Social
Environmental Economic
Aspects Aspects
Sustain-
ability

Read the chapter on Sustainable Engineering

(Chapter 3) from "Engineering Your Future: An
Australasian Guide" book by Dowling et al.
Environmental Environmental
Economic
Economics
• Renewable energy Aspects • Growth
I strongly encourage you to take notes while • Renewable materials • Profit
reading as this material/chapter will be • Recycle materials • Supply cost
assessed in your Content Knowledge Test. • Pollution prevention • Ownership Cost
The 3rd edition of this chapter has been
uploaded below, for your reference.
Why Ecologically Sustainable Development?

• The extravagant lifestyle of the Western world (undreamed of 50 years ago)

is depleting the planet’s resources at an unsustainable rate.
• Engineers provided the technology that has made this depletion possible,
so we must play an important part in addressing the problem.
• To do this, engineers of all disciplines must understand the main principles
of ecologically sustainable development (ESD).

Flux Q1: What do you understand by

https://flux.qa/ZTFYQA (12-2pm) Ecologically Sustainable
https://flux.qa/A5XR45 (6-8pm)
Development?
Real life complexity

• In many real life situations, there is no single straightforward criteria for judging a ‘good’ solution.
There are often multiple parties with different vested interests.
• Economic, social and environmental aspects of a problem form the so-called triple bottom
line (TBL).
• The TBL is a set of design criteria that sits alongside technical measures, and is used in
the engineering method to inform decisions.

Flux Q2: How did you consider the TBL in your project?
Ecologically sustainable development

There are a number of definitions of ecologically sustainable development (ESD):

• ‘Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.’
• ‘Using, conserving and enhancing the community’s resources so that ecological processes, on which
life depends, are maintained, and the total quality of life, now and in the future, can be increased.’

1st quote Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987)
2nd quote: Australian National Strategy for ESD (Dept. Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, 2008)
History of environmental awareness
• Community discontent with environmental impact of industrial revolution.
• Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962), regarding the effects of DDT.
• In the 1970s, mass media and telecommunications brought environmental concerns to an
international audience.
• Australian Federal election in 1983 was significantly influenced by proposed Franklin River dam.
• In the 1970s, environmental protection agencies emerged to regulate air and water pollution.
• Rio Earth Summit of world leaders in Brazil (1992) led to the Rio Declaration, which recognises the
need for sustainable development and joint action.
• During the 1990s, Australian and NZ governments enacted legislation for enterprises to evaluate and
manage their environmental impact.
• Current debate about restricting CO2 emissions.
Progression of environmental concern
Sustainable Engineering
Sustainable engineering
• Energy and resource use that minimises pollution and waste, and that considers the broader
environmental, social and economic impacts on people, now and in the future.

MOVING TOWARDS
SUSTAINABLE
SOLUTIONS
Strategies for sustainable development
• Maintain ecological integrity and biodiversity.
• Apply precaution: don’t wait for scientific proof that an emission is harmful.
• Consult stakeholders.
• Promote equity for all people, including future.
• Conserve resources.
• Limit emissions.
• Practise industrial ecology i.e. use waste from one industry as feed for another.
Promoting Intergenerational equity
• Ensuring that future generations have access to resources that would provide opportunities
for a quality of life equal to or better than that enjoyed by the current generation. (ex.
overuse of waste sinks, such as the atmosphere and oceans.
• Ensuring the consumption of resources and distribution of wastes do not disproportionately
favour one country, region or social group, causing disadvantage to another. (ex. Consider
the fact that more than 1 billion people do not have safe drinking water)
Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Analysis
• TBLA is an approach to cost–benefit analysis commonly used for evaluating the
sustainability of corporate or industry operations, or for evaluating a range of options.
• Indicators of environmental, social and economic sustainability can be either qualitative or
quantitative.
• They should aim to be reliable, useful, consistently presented, reproducible, auditable and
demonstrate full disclosure.
TBL constraints of sustainable engineering practice
Environmental:
• Amount of energy consumed and its origin
• Volume or mass of material resource use
• Solid waste management
• Emissions to air
• Quantity and quality of effluents released
Social:
• Health and safety of workers or community members
• Extent of community involvement
Economic:
• Taxes paid
• Estimates of wealth created
Measuring Environmental Impacts
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a tool for assessing or monitoring ecosystem health.
An EIA defines and reports on indicators of impacts:
• Biological e.g. abundance of various plant and animal species. Frogs, for example, are often
described as a bellwether species, one whose decline can signal imminent ecosystem
failure.
• Physical e.g. noise, water quality.
• Chemical e.g. heavy metal concentration.
One-off EIA are undertaken before a project in order to determine the value of an environment.
Ongoing EIA are designed to establish and support monitoring when there is the desire to maintain
environmental health.
Measures of resource intensity

• Resource intensity is the sum of all the resources and energy used to deliver a service or
create, use and dispose of a product.
• Ecological footprint:
• Estimate of total surface area of arable land required to provide renewable resources and
energy for maintaining a certain standard of living.
• Ecological rucksack:
• Weight of natural materials disturbed in order to generate a product.
Strategies for reducing environmental impact

• Substitute alternative, renewable or less-scarce materials (e.g. timber in place of steel beams).
• Conserve by using less material to achieve the same service (e.g. water efficient fittings).
• Reuse/recycle materials with minimal additional processing (e.g. crushed bricks as road base).
• Reprocess materials (e.g. aluminium cans).
• Redress impact of resource use (e.g. purchase carbon credits).
Life cycle assessment (LCA)
• LCA estimates the environmental impacts associated with a product, process or service
throughout its life, from raw material extraction to processing, transport, use and disposal
(cradle-to-grave).
• Uses certain standard impact categories such as:
• depletion of world resources (e.g. crude oil)
• ozone depletion (via emissions etc.)
• eutrophicaton of waters (nutrient emissions)
• water resource depletion
• human toxicity
• LCA is becoming more standardised and routine. It helps to highlight the difference
between the dollar cost of a product and the environmental cost.
LCA of a bottle of Greek beer
Socially sustainable engineering
• Many companies now include sections on community activity or corporate social responsibility in
their annual reports.
• EA’s code of ethics states: ‘Members shall place their responsibility for the welfare, health and safety
of the community before their responsibility to sectional or private interests’.
• The ‘do no harm’ ethic has become important.
• What about other levels of human need?
• Community consultation:
• For major projects, engineers should not presume to know the relative importance of various
costs and benefits to stakeholders.
• Community consultation involves the community in ranking different outcomes and also
generating alternative solutions.
• It takes time and effort, and means that the engineer loses control of the process, so needs to
be undertaken carefully.
To summarise…
• The origins of sustainable engineering philosophy.
• The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) of economic, environmental and social considerations.
• Different means for evaluating sustainability:
• Environmental impact assessments
• Lifecycle analysis
• How to consider social impacts of a project
Food for Thought 1
Wastewater Treatment Plant - Greenhouse Gas Emissions

• There are different types and amounts of greenhouse gas emissions in each unit operation. We
mainly care about methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. You may wish to find out what is
emitted in your chosen unit operations.
• Are these emissions avoidable? Not entirely, NO! Should we care about these emissions? Definitely,
YES!
• For example, the Victorian Government has said that the Victorian water industry needs to be net-
zero by 2035 - that’s only 12 years away.
• So…how do we respond? Flux Q3

 Monitoring. In Australia, water authorities need to measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions, which are
then reported to the Clean Energy Regulator through the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting scheme.
 Mitigation. Water authorities should actively improve their overall operations so that they offset and/or reduce the
emissions they produce. This doesn’t necessarily have to be about their treatment plant - for example, they may
install solar panels on their corporate building.
Food for Thought 2
Energy tips: landfill gas
• Landfill Sites – areas designated to receive solid wastes
• Anerobic bacteria – thrive in oxygen free environment – decompose the waste – methane (>50%) + various
dioxides
• Landfill gas - key contributor to global climate change
• Emitted from the decomposition of rubbish waste
• Big contributor to air pollution
• Can generate reliable and renewable energy – burned produce energy
• Landfill gas to electricity (LGTE) Plants – WA the most successful (1st waste-to-energy incineration plant)
• Henderson Renewable Energy Facility - modular (up/down sized); reduce gas emissions by >1 mil by 2022

 Biofuels (like methane) come from microbiological digestion of plant material – considered “renewable” energy sources
 Is landfill gas a “renewable” energy source? If not, why not? If yes, should we create as much municipal waste as
possible to ensure a generous ongoing supply?
Working in teams…
and the opportunity for feedback
 The opportunity for feedback - at the end of week 5
The Feedback Loop
Assess
Your team
health/dynamics

Behave Feedback

Your teamwork Change Awareness

skills
Report 1 – your teamwork skills
 SKILLS EXAMPLES

COMMUNICATION  Communicates clearly and shares information

Your interactions and ability to listen/speak so that there is  Exchanges information with teammates in a timely manner
no confusion  Asks teammates for feedback and uses their suggestions
 Seeks appropriate team input before taking action
COMMITMENT  Takes on affair share of the team’s work
Your commitment to the team’s work  Demonstrates commitment to the team’s work
 Prepares for team meetings
 Keeps deadlines and delivering complete, accurate work
STRONG FOUNDATION OF KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND  Acquires new skills or knowledge to improve the team’s
ABILITIES (KSA) performance
Seeking out learning opportunities  Learns about other teammates’ tasks and roles
 Has sufficient KSA to excel in the team’s activities
STANDARDS  Encourages and motivates the team
Strong expectations and belief that the team will  Expresses a belief that the team can do excellent work
succeed/achieve high standards  Believes that the team will achieve high standards
 Cares about the quality of team’s work

FOCUS  Monitors conditions affecting the team and notices problems

Keeping the team on track  Giving teammates specific, timely and constructive feedback
 Helps the team plan and organise work, and anticipates issues
 The way forward…
Individually, you will:

• Reflect on this feedback – strengths, improvements

• Set your goal – specific behaviour the you think you could enhance
• WHY is this important for you and your career?
• HOW – list specific actions that will help you achieve your goal
• WHO – list the people who will help assess your progress
• DONE? Indicate how will you monitor the goal achievement
• TIMELINE – for the goal’s completion

You will review this in your Design Evaluation Report and Professional Identity Reflection
More on this during your Week 6 Project Meeting
Report 2 – Your Team Dynamics
Report 2 – Your Team Dynamics
@ITPMetrics
Communicate
TEAM’S ABILITY TO CLARIFY ROLES, FORMULATE A STRATEGY, AND TAKE A COOPERATIVE APPROACH TO MANAGING CONFLICT

Role Clarity
• Well defined & understood roles
• Clear responsibilities, goals, expectations
Cooperative
Role Clarity Conflict Cooperative Conflict Management
Management
• Conflict viewed as a chance to learn and improve
• Mutual respect

Strategy Formulation Strategy Formulation & Planning

& Planning • Developing strategies to guide team efforts
• How do we plan a task?
• How do we approach a task?
• What do we do when we face challenges?
Adapt
TEAM’S ADAPTABILITY TO COORDINATE EFFORTS, MONITOR TEAM PROGRESS, AND PROVIDE
EACH OTHER SUPPORT

Emphasising Goal Team Monitoring

Coordination
Progression & Backup

Coordination Emphasising Goal Team Monitoring & Backup

• Smooth workflow Progression • Shared awareness of
between team • Regular evaluation of strength & weaknesses
members progress & goals • Monitor work standards
• Integration and • Offer help when needed
coordination of efforts
Relate
HOW TEAM MEMBERS INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER

Contribution Equity
• Agreement about contribution & objectives
Healthy,
Contribution
Fact-Driven Lack of Personal Conflict
Equity
Conflict • Atmosphere free of tensions, friction etc.

Healthy, Fact-Driven Conflict

Lack of • Freely and openly debates different perspectives
Personal Trust
Conflict
Trust
• Confidence in the integrity, reliability etc.
Educate
TEAM’S ABILITY TO LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

Constructive Controversy
• Development and expression of all members’
ideas + effort to understand and question
Constructive • Integration of unique components of ideas +
Controversy agreement on decision and implementation

Exploratory Learning
• Searching new information beyond team’s current
knowledge
Exploitative Exploratory • Open mindedness toward new concepts/ideas
Learning Learning

Exploitative Learning
• Utilisation of existing knowledge from past
experiences, routines etc.
Team Discussion
During your next team meeting discuss

• What are we doing well?

• What is not working?
• What steps should we take to improve?

• Goal of discussion:
• Review scores
• Review comments
• Identify strategies for improvement – who will be doing what?
• Fill in the Team Action Plan Document – you will review this in week 12
 Team Action Plan Document
Submit in your Team Google Drive as part of
your week 7 Weekly Progress Report
Feedback so my brain can hear it
Human Connection
Purpose / Intention – tell me why you want to share this

Growth Oriented
Process – around What I Did not Who I was Being

Specific
The more I know the more I can learn – help me build Awareness

Open Curiosity
What Next / How to Improve – help me figure out how to apply the new insight / learning

© Amy Jackson 2021

Process Engineering Design Report Submission:
Monday 27 March 9:30am
 Moodle/Week 5
For next week (week 5)
Important Information – week 5 Moodle/Week 5