Team:UESTC-China/Communication
As a saying goes. In the space age, the most important space was between the ears . Listening and speaking are key links in our interaction with the outside world, so our human practice also focuses on this aspect.
Social Research
In order to establish a preliminary contact with the target population and stakeholders, we first carried out a social survey. This survey mainly distributed questionnaires to middle school students and teachers, supplemented by interviews with community
workers, waste recycling station personnel, relevant technical experts and government agencies. It helped us to know the fundamentals of the project and have a simple understanding of the current environmental situation of our field.
Since Covid-19, we obtained a small number of samples and interviewed a relatively concentrated group. But it still proposed the direction of improvement for our subsequent work.
1.Research in communities and offices
In order to understand the practical significance of Deinker, provide irradiative ideas and solutions for our project and put this project more into effect, we conducted a preliminary interview survey among people in offices and communities who consume a mass of A4 paper daily. Questions were asked about their current waste of A4 paper and willingness to use our products. In this survey, people showed great interest in Deinker and expressed their willingness to use our mature products. In addition, we found that the public is mostly concerned about the quality of deinked paper, following the subsequent waste disposal and the experience when using Deinker. It was of great guiding significance for our subsequent experiments and hardware design. We decided to pay more attention to the quality of deinked paper and make the hardware more user-friendly.2.Research in recycling stations
As the practical significance of Deinker has been confirmed, we now had a preliminary understanding of what people are concerned about. Wanting to be closer to the paper industry chain, we decided to take the same approach: a survey in the recycling stations around us to get a deeper understanding of the current paper recycling situation and other areas we need to pay attention to. During the communication, we learned that because of the high confidentiality requirements of A4 paper, the recycling of it is limited. And part of the recycled A4 paper will be transformed into raw materials for producing other kinds of paper such as household paper due to the decline of paper quality. But our program fills that gap very well!3.Requirements Survey
In order to cover a wider group of office workers and iterate our design according to their needs, we conducted a demand survey. We investigated where the used paper will be and printing needs of 7 different office groups, and finally obtained 486 valid samples. The results of this survey not only helped us understand the public's demand for paper, but also helped us identify our target audience.Communicate with SCUT
South China University of Technology is regarded as the foremost authority on paper making and deinking in China. We have encountered a lot of difficulties in the process of reading literature and conducting experiments, so we managed to get in touch
with teachers in SCUT and asked them for help. The first professor we contacted with was professor Zhang Chunhui.
Figure1. Photo of Professor Zhang
Zhang Chunhui, PhD, professor and doctoral supervisor of the South China University of Technology. He has undertaken or participated in more than 10 projects of national key research and development projects, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Guangzhou key special projects and enterprise horizontal projects. He has published more than 60 papers and 1 monograph in academic journals and conferences at home and abroad.
We sent our project's introduction to Professor Zhang, and a reply was soon received. He expressed his recognition of our program and said he was happy someone was continuously paying attention to recycling. Besides, he gave us four suggestions as followed.
1.Find out the composition of ink/toner. MOW is usually laser printed and containing toner mostly;
2.For MOW, the role of lipase and laccase is usually insignificant, and cellulase and hemifibrase (xylosinase and mannosinase) should be focused;
3.It is difficult to control the time, pH and temperature of the action if directly apply the enzyme solution to the paper.
4.Not clear about the structure and working principle of the deinking part.
We thought over Professor Zhang's reply, then determined that we need to focus on cellulase and hemifibrase more when deinking and use lipase and laccase to treat the wastewater only.
A few days later, we sent another e-mail to Professor Zhang. In this e-mail, three questions were raised.
5.Why did the whiteness of paper declined after paper pulping and cellulase applying?
6.How to quantify the ink blots involved on the paper?
7. How to eliminate the burrs on the surface of the paper after deinking?
Professor Zhang was very eager to answer our questions. He pointed out that the whiteness decrease of the paper may due to two reasons: 1. the degradation of the fluorescent brightening agent contained in the paper and 2. the size of the residuary ink. In addition, he suggested that we can use a professional ink tester to determine the amount of residuary ink and add a squeeze process to the hardware to solve the burr problem.
After the epidemic, Professor Zhang invited us to visit his lab. Zhou Ying, the head of UESTC-China, visited his lab on behalf of our team. In Mr. Zhang's lab, she saw a lot of precision instruments. Mr. Zhang said that he was very glad to provide guidance
and help on the relevant technical issue, and he could help us test the relevant materials if we needed them.
Thanks to Professor Zhang's patient guidance, which was of great help to our project.
Figure2,3. Visiting Mr Zhang's Lab and the photo with Professor Zhang
Talk with Deputy Director Pei
Deputy Director Pei is an official of the government's environmental protection department, with years of experience in environmental policy, standard formulation and solving environmental problems. This time, he was invited to participate in our interview.
Deputy Director Pei originally learned about our work through the demand questionnaire we released earlier, and expressed his recognition to our PIs. Therefore, we took this opportunity to contact Deputy Director Pei. This communication has helped us
gain some knowledge related to environmental protection policies.
Figure4, 5, 6. Talking with Deputy Director Pei.
Communicate with teachers in Chengdu Institute of Yeast
Having encountered many difficulties in yeast cultivation and fermentation, and sorting out the problems other teams rose during Yeast Meet-up, we went to Chengdu Institute of Biology for help.
When we arrived there, Teacher Jia was conducting experiments on the strain, but still received us with open arms. We were too eager to solve our problems that we came straight to the point and asked our questions.
In the process of expression product’s extraction, we have tried to use ammonium sulfate to concentrate. But not only the demand of materials was very large, the result was also not ideal. Teacher Jia agreed with us and said that she had some experience
with us. She tried to find a suitable ammonium sulfate precipitation to concentrate too but failed. So now she changed to use the thickening tube, and she showed us a thickening tube and taught us how to use it, which gave us a great
deal of inspiration.
Then we discussed culture medium. In the process of discussion, we compared our protocols with Teacher Jia’s and corrected our shortage, which cleared the obstacles for our subsequent cultivation.
As we were puzzled by the repeated contamination of miscellaneous bacteria in the experiment for a long time, Mr. Jia suggested that we check from the various parts of the experiment, and complete the sterilization and disinfection of the experimental
apparatus and materials. She also mentioned to clean the inside of the pipette gun, which we had ignored.
Figure7, 8. Communicate with the teacher and the photo with teacher Jia.
Interview with Dean Luo
Luo, dean of the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, UESTC, was one of the judges of Zhongguancun Talent Maker Competition. After watching our project report, he took the initiative to have a simple talk with us. His main points and suggestions
are as follows:
A. The combination of electronics and biomaterials is complementary and is one of the core innovations of our project.
B. Although we can only deinking laser-printed office waste paper at present, the development of the project should follow the law of step by step, step by step to solve the problem can let us climb higher.
C. It may seem like a small thing to deal with office waste paper, but if we could actually recycle office waste paper in situ, it would be a world-changing project.
D. If we want to further promote the marketization of the project, we can go to the entrepreneurial base in Guangdong, China for relevant practice and study.
Communicate with the general manager of Deli Factory
Coincidence fell, we got in touch with Liu Minghui who is in charge of deli printer factory. Deli printer factory has independently developed laser printer head, inkjet printer head, software source code, main control board, printing engine and other
core components, and basically realized independent control. And has owned more than 70 printer related patents, covering imaging, transfer printing and fixing and other important technologies. We hoped to gain inspiration from the
existing research experience from Deli Factory. The field of "ciphertext" mentioned by General Manager Liu coincided with our original project idea. We had a pleasant conversation and left open the possibility of further cooperation
and sponsorship.
Talk with Granny Hua
We came across Granny Hua, a paper flower craftsman in Chengdu, on the internet and heard that she would hold an exhibition of her works in Chengdu in early July.
After hearing the news, our team members visited the exhibition site on July 2nd and had in-depth communication with her. During the communication, we learned that making paper flower crafts is Granny Hua's personal hobby, which is established from her
love for plateau plants and strong environmental protection awareness. It happened to coincide with our project's concept to a certain extent. So, we introduced our project to her in detail.
She praised our project and thought such work is really practical. If the paper can be deinked successfully in the future, she would like to cooperate with us. For example, using our deinked paper to make paper flower crafts. And she expected to view
the achivement of our project. She had brought a lot of inspiration to our cultural creative products.
Figure9, 10, 11. The works of Granny Hua and talking with Granny Hua.
Paper Saving Series Activities
Background: In 2020, we became one of the first ten universities to join Sichuan Chengdu Eco-Environment Alliance. Combining its character with our project, we designed paper saving series activities to promote the concept of
environmental protection and paper saving.
What we have done
1. We have launched more than 10 waste paper recycling bins in school offices, inviting teachers and students to join us. People throw waste paper into them after necessarily confidential treatment, then we took them back regularly
to collect waste paper. The recycled waste paper would be used in the experimental verification part of our project. Then, we would return new paper in proportion as a reward to improve people's awareness of recycling waste paper,
establish the concept of turning waste into treasure, and lay a foundation for the subsequent use of deinking machine.
2. We distributed questionnaires to students in the form of free bookmarks at the entrance of the school cafeteria. And if participants filled the questionnaires carefully, we would return them small gifts. Exquisite bookmarks
were recyclable to use, and high-quality questionnaires also made the research more meaningful. Using this form to carry out activity could not only attract everyone’s attention for this activity, but the idea of saving paper was always
embodied in our activities, which can let more teachers and classmates to join our concept of waste paper recycling.
What we have learned
In the end, we recovered more than 10kg of waste paper from more than 50 participants. And we promoted the concept of environmental protection and made participants to develop a good habit of saving waste paper in the form of waste paper recycling bins.
Figure12, 13, 14. Students are engaged in and the photo of our team members.
Paper Elf Fantasy Night
On October 17, 2020, we jointly held the activity of "Weekend Detective" in Sichuan Science and Technology Museum with UESTC-Software team. We held two small activities with the theme of deinking:
(1) "Micro World in My Eyes" paper scraping;
(2) The "Paper Elf Fantasy Night" living theatre.
Figure15, 16, 17. Site of activity
Video1. The video of Paper Elf Fantasy Night.
These two activities have attracted more than 300 people from more than 100 families, and been reported by many media such as Sichuan Observer, Sichuan TV, Toutiao and Sichuan Daily, which have helped bring the concept of environmental protection and
synthetic biology to a wider range. With the help of the artistic means of paper scraping, we passed the idea that deinked paper is still usable to children in a vivid way. At the same time, we also introduced them that many microbial
friends existing around us, such as E. coli, yeast and lactic acid bacteria. And using the interesting form of the stage play, we made interesting stories about the scientific functions of cellulase, xylanase, laccase and lipase, so
that the audiences can better understand the significance and benefits of our enzymatic paper deinking method, and passed on the environmental concept of saving paper.
Science Popularization Video
Sichuan Science and Technology Museum is a very popular important science education base of teenagers in Sichuan province. As the open window of it, Sichuan Science and Technology Museum’s official accounts has a wide range
of audiences, and it's public reading quantity of each WeChat push can reach 5000 +. Influenced by the outbreak of COVID-19, we couldn't go to Sichuan Science and Technology Museum to close contact with children all the time, so we
chose an interesting way to post popular science video online through its WeChat push. We have been able to make our project and synthetic biology known to more people, and the response has been overwhelming.
Video2. The Science Popularization Video.