Figure 1: Team
Figure 1.1: Material Selection
Figure 1.2: Final Solution Life Cycle
Objective: The town of MacMacster, a small community in Southern Ontario with a population of 1,000, faces health and environmental risks due to radioactive runoff from the nearby Bruce Nuclear Power Plant. Our team, Thurs-53, was tasked with designing a cost-effective wastewater filtration system to remove micro- and nano-scale radioactive contaminants (0.1 to 1 micrometer) while adhering to technical, regulatory, and financial constraints. The system needed to ensure community safety, environmental sustainability, and ease of maintenance within the town’s limited budget.
Project Journey: The project spanned five weeks (January 7th to February 15th, 2025), structured around weekly design studio milestones. We began by defining the problem and brainstorming objectives, focusing on cost-effectiveness and safety. Early challenges included identifying suitable materials, as our initial Material Performance Index (MPI) rankings in Granta yielded materials like brick, limestone, and slate, which were unsuitable for a fiber-based filter. I contributed to revising the material selection criteria by adding a custom filter in Granta to focus on fiber-compatible materials, leading to the selection of polyethylene (PE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) as finalists. We faced trade-offs between environmental impact and performance, EVA had the lowest CO₂ emissions (0.0107 kg), but PE scored higher in our decision matrix due to better corrosion resistance and accessibility. Through iterative analysis, including porosity calculations (yielding a porosity of 51.6% for PE) and eco-audits, we finalized PE as the material, achieving a system that met regulatory standards and filtered contaminants effectively. Our final design processed high volumes of water while minimizing environmental impact, as validated by the eco-audit results showing PE’s CO₂ emissions at 0.0115 kg—only slightly higher than EVA.
Team Contributions: Team Thurs-53 collaborated to develop a comprehensive filtration system. We conducted research, performed material selection using Granta, calculated porosity, and assessed environmental impacts through eco-audits. My role focused on coordinating team efforts, researching filtration technologies, and contributing to the material selection process, ensuring our design met the town’s needs.
Technical Skills
Soft Skills
We have worked as a team in designing a filter that would be ideal for our targeted audience. To thoroughly perform well in this project we did the following:
Problem Definition and Objectives: We defined the problem statement, identifying key objectives like cost-effectiveness, safety, and sustainability, and created an objective tree to prioritize them.
Material Selection: Using Granta, we ranked materials based on MPIs and finalized PE after evaluating corrosion resistance, accessibility, and thermal stability.
Porosity and Eco-Audit: We calculated a porosity of 51.6% for PE, ensuring it could filter contaminants down to 0.09 μm, and conducted eco-audits to compare CO₂ emissions and energy usage.
Regulatory Compliance: The design adhered to regulations from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Health Canada, and Ontario’s Environmental Protection Act, ensuring safe radioactive waste handling.
My primary responsibilities and contributions included:
Role as Project Coordinator: I acted as the lead contributor in completing team milestone worksheets and maintained a logbook of additional meetings (e.g., January 7th for team introductions, February 11th for report planning.
Research on Filtration Technologies: I wrote a research memo summarizing advancements in filtration technologies, such as membrane-based filtration (e.g., nanofiltration, reverse osmosis) and nanotechnology (e.g., graphene-based membranes, MOFs). I highlighted their relevance to small communities like MacMacster, emphasizing cost-effectiveness and sustainability. This research informed our design factors, ensuring the system was modular, energy-efficient, and compliant with regulations.
Material Selection and MPI Analysis: I contributed to the material selection process by calculating MPIs and ranking materials in Granta, initially identifying concrete, sandstone, and limestone. After feedback highlighted their unsuitability for filtration, I collaborated with Lisa to refine the Granta criteria, focusing on fiber-compatible materials, which led to the selection of PE, PVC, and EVA
Life Cycle Analysis: I created a life cycle diagram for polyethylene, detailing its journey from material sourcing (using Polymershapes in Brampton) to disposal (non-recyclable due to radioactive contamination, requiring hazardous waste disposal). I cited each step, ensuring transparency
Report Contributions: I supported the team in documenting our process, particularly in the appendices, by providing a logbook of additional meetings and discussions
This project was a pivotal learning experience that deepened my understanding of engineering design, particularly in balancing technical performance with real-world constraints. Researching filtration technologies was eye-opening, I learned about advanced methods like graphene-based membranes and MOFs, which can achieve molecular-level filtration. This taught me the importance of staying updated on cutting-edge technologies, as they can offer innovative solutions to complex problems like nuclear wastewater treatment. For instance, graphene membranes’ ultrafast filtration potential inspired me to prioritize efficiency in our design, ensuring we met MacMacster’s high-volume filtration needs.
The material selection process was a significant challenge. Initially, our MPI rankings identified materials like brick, which I ranked as a top candidate (Page 9 of individual worksheets). However, the feedback we received highlighted that brick was unsuitable for a fiber-based filter. This setback taught me the importance of aligning material properties with the specific application—filtration requires flexibility and porosity, not just strength. Collaborating with Lisa to refine the Granta criteria was a turning point; by focusing on fiber-compatible materials, we identified polyethylene as a viable option. This experience underscored the value of iterative design and adaptability, as I had to critically reassess my assumptions and pivot to a more suitable solution.
Working as Project Coordinator also highlighted the importance of teamwork and communication. Documenting additional meetings (e.g., February 11th to assign report responsibilities) ensured everyone stayed on track, but I realized I could have been more proactive in facilitating discussions during earlier milestones. For example, I focused heavily on drafting the problem statement (Page 3 of individual worksheets) but contributed less to the objective tree discussions. Reflecting on this, I see now that I could have asked more questions, like “How can we better prioritize sustainability in our objectives?” to ensure a more balanced contribution. In future projects, I’ll aim to engage more actively in all aspects of the design process, balancing my coordination role with technical input.
This project also broadened my perspective on the societal impact of engineering. Designing a filter for MacMacster made me realize how engineering decisions directly affect community health, our system’s ability to remove radioactive contaminants down to 0.09 μm ensures safer drinking water, potentially preventing health issues like radiation poisoning. The eco-audit results further emphasized the environmental responsibility engineers hold; while polyethylene’s CO₂ emissions (0.0115 kg) were slightly higher than EVA’s (0.0107 kg), its overall performance justified the trade-off. This experience sparked my interest in sustainable engineering, particularly in how material choices can minimize environmental impact. Moving forward, I’ll prioritize lifecycle analyses in my designs, ensuring sustainability is considered from production to disposal.
If I could revisit this project, I’d focus on exploring hybrid filtration systems more deeply. My research memo mentioned combining activated carbon with electrochemical filtration, which could have enhanced our design’s efficiency and reduced biofouling. I’d also advocate for integrating renewable energy sources, like solar panels, to further lower the system’s carbon footprint. These lessons will shape my future work, especially as I pursue interests in environmental engineering, where I aim to design solutions that are both effective and sustainable.