CHEM-E2205 - Materials for a World in Transition D, Lecture, 10.1.2024-16.2.2024
This course space end date is set to 16.02.2024 Search Courses: CHEM-E2205
Topic outline
-
Teaching in 2024
Welcome to the 2024 edition of the Material for a World in Transition course! Happily, we are again able to meet face-to-face for this edition of the MWT course (the first two editions were fully online!) Despite this, one or two of the lectures will be organized online since the lecturer(s) are from abroad and, exceptionally, we may resort to the online environment if the need arises. Whenever possible, we will record the live lectures to preserve a record for later reference and as a resource if for any reason you are not able to attend in person.
We very much hope that you will find the course engaging and inspiring!
Mark Hughes & Anna Klemettinen
Where?
Lectures will take place in U1 (U154) in Otakaari 1 every Wednesday and Friday from 10:15-12:00
We hope many of you will be able to join us face-to-face.
In case some students are not able to join us on campus, lectures will be recorded and broadcast in ZOOM
Link to ZOOM: https://aalto.zoom.us/j/62875464433
Enrollment
The course is limited to a maximum of 60 participants. The course is mandatory for students of Creative Sustainability. If fewer than 60 places are taken by students on the Creative Sustainability program, the remaining places will be allocated to students from other programs. These students will be selected on the basis of their backgrounds, to ensure that we are able to create multidisciplinary teams for group working.
About the course
As the song by Madonna goes, we are “living in a material world” – literally! Our culture and economy is intimately linked to the transformation of materials into products for our use – for construction, for transportation and for the host of other artefacts deemed necessary by current society. With our use of raw materials, and the energy used in their transformation, we are now irrevocably changing our environment, to such an extent that a new geological epoch has been espoused – the Anthropocene.
Historically, we learned to use the natural materials around us, or those derived from the animals hunted for food - stone, wood, vegetable fibers, leather, bone, horn, sinew etc. Later, we learned to produce metals from ores, and in the past century or so to synthesize polymers and resins from fossil oil. Through the scientific study of materials, we have become adept at creating new materials with radically new properties – properties never before seen, nor even dreamed of.
Despite our undoubted ingenuity at developing new materials and producing new products from them, we still take little account of the impact that our materials’ use has on the environment and, in many cases, on our fellow humans. This paradigm needs to change. Recognizing this, new policy, at national and EU level has been developed, embodied in the concepts of the Circular Economy and the Bioeconomy, the aim of which is to change the current situation to a (more) sustainable use of materials. Even with these intentions, a gulf remains between the status quo and a sustainable materials economy.
In this course, we will explore the nexus between materials and sustainability, adopting a systems thinking approach to materials cycles. We will look at how the use of material and the choices we make in their selection, and the design of materials and products, affect sustainability. We will look at how we can improve resource efficiency and will explore the limits to this. We will look at material flows and the stakeholders involved in often highly complex value chains.
Week #
Date
Time
Topic
Teacher
2
10.1
10:15-12
Living in the material world: Introduction to the course; materials and society; the consequences of materials use; familiarization with materials
Mark & Anna
12.1
10:15-12
Materials and their properties: What are materials and where do they come from; classes of materials; why do we use certain materials?
Mark & Anna
3
17.1
10:15-12
Materials, flows and systems: How materials and products are made and the impacts that arise from this
Mark & Anna
19.1
10:15-12
Materials and systems thinking
Deniz Koca (online)
4
24.1
10:15-12
Thermodynamics
Callum Hill
26.1
10:15-12
Systems modelling
Deniz Koca (online)
5
31.1
10:15-12
Poster session: Each group presents the topic of their project and first thoughts
Anna & Mark
2.2
10:15-12
Efficiency, sufficiency, or something else? Strategies to reduce the impact of materials use: circular economy; bioeconomy
Mark
6
7.2
10:15-12
Metals, flows and systems
Anna
9.2
10:15-12
Resource efficiency and circular economy
Mark
7
14.2
10:15-12
The circular- and bio-economies in practice
Anna & Mark
16.2
10:15-12
Materials and the bioeconomy
Mark
Important deadlines
Project work (group work)- Selecting project topic: 19.01.- Presenting a poster on selected topic (first thoughts): 31.01- Submitting final video presentation: 14.02Learning diaries (Individual work)- Learning Diary 1: 23.01- Peer feedback for Learining Diary 1: 30.01- Learning Diary 2: 06.02- Peer feedback for Learining Diary 2: 13.02- Learning Diary 3: 20.02- Peer feedback for Learining Diary 3: 27.02