Team:ZJUT-China/Human Practices
Human Practices
Human Practice
After discussion, we decided to do formaldehyde degradation projects. We have collected data through various channels, hoping to get helpful information.
According to the data, formaldehyde has been listed as carcinogen, leukaemia inducer and other harmful substances by many international authorities.
When looking up the formaldehyde caused incident on the international website, we found that more than 90% of the incidents were caused by things close to our living environment, such as small vehicle objects, classroom tables and chairs, newly decorated homes, etc.
So we took the time to test the formaldehyde concentration in different places, including new toys, new car cushions, newly decorated classrooms, etc. We found that formaldehyde exceeded the standard even more seriously than we expected.
After formaldehyde degradation, we hope that the bacteria can be effectively degraded without causing bacterial leakage and secondary pollution. In order to achieve this goal, we designed the light-dependent controlled lysis system. With this system, bacteria can express lysis genes under light conditions, cell death.
Why are there so many events about formaldehyde exceeding the standard？ First of all, we need to know from the root of the problem. We took this opportunity to visit the companies that sell mattresses, sofas, pillows and boards. We found that the environmental safety certificates of the furniture company are complete, but we learned from the interview that many conpanies push responsibility to others when formaldehyde concentration exceeds the standard.What is worth mentioning is that although the plates and furniture parts sold separately are in line with national standards, when they are assembled together, the formaldehyde content is likely to exceed the standard.
Therefore, we designed a questionnaire to investigate the human’s awareness on the importance and professional knowledge of formaldehyde, to understand their treatment methods for formaldehyde. Here are our questionnaires and results.
Here is the analysis of the data.
From the figure, we find that only 11% of the people really guide all the knowledge about formaldehyde. Especially 72% of the people over 40 choose do not know anything about formaldehyde, so the public's fear of formaldehyde is very shallow and they do not really understand the harm of formaldehyde
Of course,34%of people are more inclined to specialize in formaldehyde removal companies, while 76% of people feel that formaldehyde can be eliminated only by ventilation or green planting. 28% of people prefer air purifiers, but do not know that air purifiers mainly remove PM2.5 particles in the air, which is difficult to deal with formaldehyde.
Finally, people are still very conservative about the methods of formaldehyde biodegradation. Most people are worried about biosafety and secondary pollution. This has triggered our thinking about how to achieve environmental protection and biosafety.
What’s more, based on our biological professional knowledge, we have the most basic concept on the prototype of formaldehyde biodegradation device, according to what the public concerns most about the product.
After we consulted the information, we decided to interview two aldehyde removal companies in depth. Here's our main survey results.
1, CHUANGLVJIA
Q: Could you introduce the main formaldehyde removal products on the market at present?
A: There are mainly two kinds on the market at present. One is photocatalyst and the other is bio-enzyme. But these two kinds are actually macromolecule substances. Our company mainly uses the ultraviolet. Then the photocatalyst can convert formaldehyde into carbon dioxide and water.
Q: How about the company's product use and aldehyde removal efficiency?
A: For walls and cloth furniture, we use spray method. Some leather furniture will be wiped with rags. Like some special drawers, we will brush the products to the edge seams. But for dark corners, our products may have some disadvantages.
Q: According to the data, the release period of formaldehyde is 3-15 years. How can we keep formaldehyde at low concentration for so long?
A: First of all, formaldehyde release rate is the fastest and the largest in the early stage. Moreover, our products can infiltrate into the furniture and deal with the formaldehyde in the interior of the furniture in a large amount.
The person in charge then said that the use of photocatalyst products is also limited, because indoor space is always lack of light, such as the corner of some doors, the back of drawers and so on, where is dark and humid, resulting in invalid of photocatalyst.
In view of our subject, the person in charge said that this method is actually quite novel, and sounds feasible, and has certain market prospects. However we must consider the environmental and cost issues, because we plan to cooperate with the air purifier. yet the price of the air purifier is relatively high, and the use of microorganisms to remove aldehyde needs to be replaced frequently. There must be a need to reduce costs and gain competitive advantage.
2,LVGUAN
Q: what is the main principle of your formaldehyde removal products? What advantages do you have compared with other products?
A: In addition to formaldehyde, our company's products are mainly based on a kind of biological enzyme. According to the principle of formaldehyde absorption by plants, polymer compounds are extracted from pure plants and mixed with special enzymes, lignin and organic solvents.The aldehyde removal process will keep continuing internally and then achieve the effect of durable dehyde. The advantage of this enzyme is that it does not need light irradiation like photocatalyst. Secondly, it has adsorbability, so the durability of aldehyde removal is very good.
Q: How can we ensure that this enzyme does not denaturate in high formaldehyde concentration?
A: Because formaldehyde exists in the cultivation environment of our lignin-producing plants, we have ensured that the key ingredients in our products have formaldehyde-resistant properties from the outset.
After introducing our project, he said that this is similar to the principle of adding air filters to air conditioning in the market, but our project uses microbes, which caused safety problems, and this is most worrying thing for the person in charge. As such, we stressed that we must take into account the issue of biosafety. This is really a big problem for us.
From the previous public research and the inspiration of aldehyde removal companies, we thought that it's better to use a simple and convenient strategy to solve this problem. Furthermore, we think of last year's optical control system, which use the optical control to realize bacteria’s self-degradation. And we have improved the process of bacteria splitting in light.
According to the information provided by the company's personnel and the articles we have found in the past, we have sorted out the imperfections of aldehyde removal products in the current market. This gives us confidence that it is very promising to use biological method to remove formaldehyde.
Because of the worry that the bacteria will die due to high formaldehyde concentration in the experiment, we designed a set of experimental methods and a series of pre-experiments have been done. Our results showed that the highest solubility of formaldehyde in water in our device is 2.47 mg/m³.
This is the data
Here are some videos of our official experiment
After we built the experimental circuit, we asked the professional teachers for their opinions, so we went to interview Professor Sun Jianqiang of the school of environment. During the exchange, we also got the professor's ideas and opinions on our product devices.
Professor Sun said, now there are various kinds of aldehydes in the market. We must find the characteristics of our projects and make products that meet the needs of modern people. Now, many aldehydes are only being measured at a very early stage, and they can not be measured in time. The specific content of formaldehyde in the customer reaction period of time, and the authenticity and reliability of the data are also speculative. Most importantly, it is very expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive. So we use HP to trigger brain storms so that our products can indicate the concentration of formaldehyde through color changes. So we have an instruction group，and decided that our product could indicate the concentration of formaldehyde by changing its color and give users feedback. So we have an indication group.
In September, we came to Hangzhou Eco-environment Bureau with our completed project products. We introduced our products to the relevant personnel, and introduced the principle of the products, and provided the experimental data of the products on the treatment of formaldehyde. The EPA is very optimistic about our project of using microorganisms to treat formaldehyde without causing pollution. It believes that it is not only a marketable product, but also a new trend of using biological formaldehyde removal. Obviously, our project has received strong support from the Environmental Bureau.
