Delta Netherlands Scholarship — Final Report (Introduction to TU Delft Materials for Sustainable Development)
By: Ai-Yu Liou
Tags: Materials Science, Tu Delft, Delta Foundation, Scholarship, Sustainable Development

My team members and I studied the topic of biofuel. During the investigation, we found out that the biodiesel made with palm oil is actually not sustainable due to the deforestation in the Southeast-Asian countries, such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Based on the literature, we calculated the deforestation area that can happen if the European transport sectors decide to reach the 2030 renewable energy goal by using palm oil biodiesel. Fortunately, after remaking the report several times, our team won the first prize during the final symposium.

Figure 2. Receiving the prize provided by industrial judges after the final symposium.

4. Materials and Ecological Engineering

This course was held in the department of civil engineering, and the two main themes in this course include (1) conducting life-cycle assessments (LCA) for different construction cases and (2) identifying applications of ecological engineering in the urban areas.

During the lecture, Professor Henk Jonkers, the inventor of self-healing bio-concrete, taught us the basic concepts of LCA methodology according to Dutch Bouwbesluit 2012. It is regulated that for all houses and office buildings in the Netherlands, which are built after 2013 with a total user surface larger than 100 square meters, an environmental impact assessment must be delivered. This assessment contains the 11 environmental impact categories for different construction and transportation stages. These impact categories include global warming, freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity, eutrophication, and abiotic fuel depletion, etc. By conducting LCA properly, one can assess the sustainability of a construction case and make optimization according to the result.

Aside from LCA, we also studied the use of sustainable materials and energy, green building envelops, multiples functions provided by the ecosystem, and the interaction between the environment and building materials. The topic which has the biggest scale in space is the “infrastructure and landscape ecology”. For this topic, we discussed solutions to habitat fragmentation and road disturbance, including fish ladders, eco-ducts, and roadside verges.

The most inspiring topic I found in this course was the overview of natural building, including its properties, construction methods, potential, and limitation. One of Professor Jonkers’ students, Yask Kulshreshtha, was invited to share his Ph.D. research on natural building materials with us (specifically, mud and other biomaterials). After backpacking around his home country, India, for nine months and living in different earth houses, Yask realized that some people in the remote areas are reluctant to build a natural building even though it is cheap and sustainable. This phenomenon is due to the low social image of earth houses in Indian society. To regain the popularity of natural buildings and raise its social image, Yask decided to improve the durability of mud building blocks and advance the design of natural buildings. This story moved me a lot and I think Yask’s initiation is a great example of building a connection between one’s scientific research and society’s need.

Figure 3. The photo shows the project of “Guerrilla Gardening”, which my team members and I did after the workshop. We were trying to grow moss graffiti on a concrete surface along the riverbank. The white paint is a mixture of yogurt, sugar, and mosses. This project is also related to our final case study in class, which is called “the bio-receptivity of cementitious materials”.

5. Materials Separations in Waste Processing

This course is about separating materials in the waste stream. The course contains experiments, lectures, and computational simulation. During the experiment classes, the professor gave each team a bucket of mixed garbage pieces. The pieces contained all kinds of sliced plastics, metal nuggets, wire, and paper. Then, the professor asked us to choose only 3 machines to separate the garbage properly and get the highest profit from materials regeneration. This mission requires students to know the physical properties of different materials (e.g. density, conductivity, magnetism) in order to select the right machines and arrange them in proper order. In addition, we also need to know the price of each material and purity regulation in the recycling market. The same mission was conducted again during the computational classes, where students used TU Delft’s software to design the optimal process flow for materials separation.

I used to work as a teaching assistant in a course related to the innovative recycling industry during my bachelor years. However, none of these past experiences gave me that stunning feeling as I tried to separate the waste with my team members. After the process of learning-by-doing, I now have a deeper understating of the challenges faced by the recycling industry.

6. Materials for Clean Energy Technology

This course is about materials science in the development of solar and hydrogen energy. Students are required to study scientific papers every week and make a final presentation on one of the papers. This course made me realize that my critical thinking needs to be improved. Instead of believing every word a researcher said, I should be able to make critical comments on a scientific paper, even though it may have a high reputation in the research field.

7. Recycling Engineering Materials

This course is also related to waste processing and circular economy. However, the focus was on daily products such as cellphones and computers, as well as automobiles and airplanes. We learned the metallurgy process for recycling metals and the compounding process for recycling polymers. The final report that my team member and I worked on is about the recycling of lithium-ion batteries and electric motors of Tesla Model X.

Het Leven in Nederland

In addition to taking courses, I also joined various activities related to sustainability during my first year in the Netherlands. In order to share these experiences with my Taiwanese friends, especially those who also work in the field of suitability and environmental protection, I started a project called “Het Leven in Nederland” and wrote a short article (in Chinese, and sometimes in English as well) on Facebook per month. Most of the topics that I wrote are related to environmental sustainability and ethics of engineering. However, some topics are more related to cultural and societal aspects. The topics that I covered are listed as following.

Joint Interdisciplinary Project

In the second year of my master's, I completed two important research/internship projects. One is the Joint Interdisciplinary Project (JIP), and the other one is my master thesis project. JIP is a brand-new program in TU Delft that started as a pilot project in 2018. In 2019, the scale of JIP was expanded and that was the moment when I joined as a participant. During JIP, students from different TU Delft’s faculties were separated and assigned to various teams. Each team has to cooperate with a specific company and work on a research or design project within 11 weeks.

I was assigned to the WEP team based on my priory list during the application. Well Engineering Partners (WEP) is an engineering consulting company specialized in the field of geothermal energy. They are responsible for designing and maintaining most geothermal wells in the Netherlands. Although the geothermal energy in the Netherlands is not as abundant as in the countries such as Iceland and the USA, and the temperature is not high enough for generating electricity, the stability of formation makes the construction of geothermal well relatively easier than in some other countries. The geothermal energy in the Netherlands is mostly used for heating up the greenhouses, especially in the winter. First, the geothermal water is pumped up and is then used to heat up the clean water in a separate pipe with the help of a heat exchanger. While the clean water is sent to the greenhouses, the geothermal water is pumped back into the ground through an extra well and forms a closed loop. In this way, land subsidence and surface water pollution can be avoided.

During these 11 weeks, I worked with 3 other students from the field of Geo-engineering and Complex Systems Engineering and Management. Together, we developed an LCA model to calculate the carbon emission and the financial cost of a specific geothermal well. The model considers the dimension of a geothermal well and its materials selection, as well as the construction and the maintenance stage. I was in charge of corrosion research during the project. Since the geothermal water contains high salinity and acidity, it can corrode the geothermal well and decrease its lifetime, raising the maintenance cost. In the worst-case scenario, the geothermal well can fracture due to severe corrosion, and the surface water can be polluted by the leakage of geothermal water. Since corrosion is one of the most common engineering challenges in the field, we decided to calculate the corrosion rate of each material and its effect on the carbon emission and maintenance cost. In this way, the model can serve as a tool for WEP engineers to make better decisions. In fact, before joining JIP, I had no idea about the scientific knowledge behind corrosion. In order to do my job properly and be helpful to the team, I took an extra course of “Corrosion science” at TU Delft in the same quarter. Thanks to the course and the supports of my lecturers, my team members and I finally found a way to put the equations related to corrosion into our model. Because of this experience, I started to learn the basics of electrochemistry, and it turned out to be the field of my thesis project.

In addition to regular meetings with WEP and JIP’s workshops, we also have chances to go on excursions. The famous area for Dutch greenhouses, Westland, happens to be very closed to TU Delft. Together with the engineers from WEP, we visited several geothermal sites and met with farmers who used geothermal energy to heat up their greenhouses. Aside from informal interviews with these farmers, we also made a questionnaire to collect the information that can help to modify our model. These experiences made me learn a lot. I found myself become more confident after stepping out of my comfort zone again and again during JIP. I also experience some moments of cultural shock when working/communicating with Dutch people, but I am glad that I gradually got used to the culture and have a taste of the working environment here.