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Name of student : Danish Student ID No : Telephone No : Group: Title of Research : Thermal Conductivity of Cement Bricks integrated with Cigarette ButtsAspects of AssessmentMarks Comments Title of research 5% Thermal Conductivity of Cement Bricks integrated with Cigarette Butts. 2. Research statemen...

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Pus a tPe nga j i a nPe mbi naa n FSPU, Sha hAl a m, Se l a ngor

RESEARCH PROPOSAL FORM BCM542 Research Methodology and Methods

Name of student

: Danish

Student ID No

:

Telephone No

:

Title of Research

: Thermal Conductivity of Cement Bricks integrated with Cigarette Butts

1. 2.

Aspects of Assessment Title of research Research statement / Problem statement

Group:

Marks 5%

Comments

Thermal Conductivity of Cement Bricks integrated with Cigarette Butts.

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Cellulose acetate cigarette filters or so known as Cigarette Butts (CBs) is a very unsightly and filthy waste material and happened to be one of the most prevalent litters in the world. CB littering is considered as a severe environmental issue and is proven when Mohajerani, Kadir, & Larobina, (2016) claimed that every year, the world generates trillions of cigars, causing millions of tons of toxic waste in the form of cigarette butts to be dumped into the atmosphere. Not just that, the global environmental load of CB waste is presumed to be continuously increasing in the future (Qureshi, 2015). Throughout the years, various attempts have been implemented by the Malaysian government in order to reduce the cigarette consumption such as enacting comprehensive measures

involving

various

agencies

and

non-governmental

organizations (NGOs) and increasing taxation levels but to no avail (Lim et al., 2018). It is undeniable that despite all the reduction efforts and also the upswing trend of e-cigarettes will not cease the overall continual rise of CB due to the increasing of population according to Tao, Zhaojing, Jinliang, & Chaowei, (2019).

Moreover, it is highly impossible to clear out all CBs surrounding our environment after being littered due to the small size and vast amount scattered everywhere in our vicinity. This can be proven by (Sarani, Tun, & Onn, 2015) as they claim that due to the small size but large in the volume of CBs, it will be difficult to collect and most of it will be disposed directly to the landfill which is not environmentally sustainable nor economically feasible. In addition, these cellulose acetate cigarette filters are materials that are not easily to be

decomposed. According to Miller, (2017), even though environmental circumstances can split the filter into smaller parts, the material has a very slow rate of degradation which is determined by the surrounding climate circumstances. Considering the sheer volume of littered

cigarette

butts

in

our

environment,

the

consequence is significant.

Besides that, another concern that has led towards this research is the overall increase of surrounding temperature resulted by urban heat island. The effect of urban heat island relates to the city’s elevated temperature due to the bedding of buildings, roads, and other variables such as elevated heat storage and green storage while the concrete bedding has larger thermal capacity and conductivity resulting in the increasing temperature. According to Wong, Alias, Aghamohammadi, Meriam, & Sulaiman, (2018), urban heat island will increase the impacts of community’s health and well-being, as well as the 3.

Aims and objectives

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productivity of workers due to climate change and heat. For the past decade, there has been various effort in order to reduce the amount of Cigarette Butts (CBs) waste caused by littering and various researches has been studied to recycle the waste into various beneficial products. Consequently, the aim of this investigation is to narrow this research gap to examine the efficiency of thermal conductivity of cement brick integrated with cigarette butts. The expression of “kill two birds in one stone” accurately describes the outcome of this research in terms of providing a solution for thermal comfortability of the people living in the urban environment while dealing with the prevailing issue of the CB waste. In the efforts of achieving the aim, the following objectives were identified: 1. To identify the accurate amount of cigarette butts required to be incorporated with the cement bricks. 2. To compare the level of thermal conductivity of the cigarette butt-cement bricks with the ordinary cement bricks. 3. To analyze any change occur in terms of properties of cigarette butt bricks.

4.

Scope and Limitation

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The scope and limitation of this experimental research will be to the following extent: In general, the scope of this study will solely be focusing on the

changes in thermal conductivity of the cement bricks after being integrated with cigarette butts (CBs) in order to provide a possible outcome that could encourage the implementation of sustainable materials for the construction industry particularly in Malaysia. Due to time constraint, the experiment of incorporating CBs will only be utilized with cement bricks. Other types of bricks or any building materials that also contributed towards the overall u-value of a building will not be measured in the research. Furthermore, only the CBs that are made out of cellulose acetate will be tested in this experiment as majority of the cigarette manufacturer in the market today uses cellulose acetate as their cigarette filters. This can be proven by Sarani et al., (2015) as they claimed that 95% of cigarette produced 5.

Literature Review

30%

uses cellulose acetate cigarette filters. Thermal conductivity (TC) of materials is vital towards practical engineering to determine how low the TC can be engineered to set practical limits for a variety of applications (Agne, Hanus, & Snyder, 2018). Generally, a single constant TC value is identified for each material layer in the walls, roofs and various structural components in order to determine the overall transmission of heat into a building (Umberto, Tronchin, & Benedetto, 2018). Construction materials such as bricks are one of the main components of wall that covers a major part of the building. This is supported by (Ajayabi, Chen, Zhou, Hopkinson, & Wang, 2019) when they claimed that bricks approximately covers 70% of a building and make up to 90% by weight of all materials in the construction industry. As for that, improving the TC of bricks will give a huge impact in the overall heat transmission rate of a building. According to Sarani et al., (2015), addition of cigarette butts (CBs) will reduce the amount of TC of a material. Which means it can be a feasible material to reduce the overall heat transmission of a building. Research shows that studies on the usage of cellulose acetate cigarette filters or CBs in construction materials have been implemented in several experiments due to its effectiveness. However, it is not being implemented in wide applications of the construction industry. On the other hand, research also shows studies that has proven other thermally efficient waste materials such as waste marble sludge (Munir, Kazmi, Wu, Hanif, & Khan, 2018), sugarcane bagasse ash

(Phonphuak & Chindaprasirt, 2018) and tea waste (Ozturk, Sutcu, Erdogmus, & Gencel, 2019) yet the waste materials are not as alarming as CB as it is highly prevalent and poorly biodegradable and has more impact towards the contamination of the surrounding environment as claimed by Lee & Lee, (2015). According to a study done by Sarani et al., (2015), an incorporation of CBs with clay soil in fired-clay bricks was performed during the research in order to determine whether there would be an increase in the thermal efficiency of the fired-clay bricks when CBs are added. In this research, different firing rates of the bricks were tested to analyze the fired-clay brick’s heating performance. The researcher found out that the best thermal values were obtained at 5.0% of CBs at 5°C/min of heating rates (improved by 10% to 18%) compared to control bricks. Besides that, the researcher also discovered that CBs can be implemented as pore-forming additives into brick bodies. The effect on the properties was paralleled to growth of pores, decreased density and improvement on thermal conductivity of the fired clay brick. The researcher also claimed that the decreased of density was due to the increasing of pores with the addition of percentages of CB added. Despite that, the reduction of density was as slightly and did not affect the overall performance of the fired-clay brick. Other than using fired-clay bricks, another research was done by adding the CBs into concrete in the effort to identify the efficiency of the properties of the concrete (Tao et al., 2019). The researcher discovered that with the increase of the amount of cigarette butts, the maximum load of concrete increased gradually while the maximum load corresponding displacement decreased. Despite the gradual reduction, the increase of CBs content, the softening of concrete after the peak showed a stronger ductility, indicating that cigarette butts enhance the plastic behavior of concrete. Nevertheless, the researcher also found that the level of thermal conductivity had been slightly reduced dependable with scale. Furthermore, a further research had been done by Mohajerani et al., (2017) on the properties of asphalt concrete (AC) incorporated with encapsulated cigarette butts. In the effort of examining the efficiency of optimal performance improvement of asphalt concrete, the researchers

discovered that manufacturing AC samples using higher class bitumen to encapsulate the CBs gave better results for the properties of AC. Similar with previous researches, BC successfully reduced the overall thermal conductivity of the AC. The researcher claimed that the amount of air voids existed will increase the tendency of infiltration of air into road pavements and boosting the rate of cooling down from the heat via convection. Dependable with the classes of bitumen added, the amount of bitumen shows an improvement in terms of air void percentage within the target range of (3%-6%) by using Class 320 and Class 600 bitumen and also gave better results for the overall performance including the physical and mechanical properties of AC. Based on all the researches mentioned, it is proven that CB has a high potential in providing various improvement towards the properties of construction materials. However, only few researches have touched on the implementation of CB in construction materials. Thus, there are still various materials have not been experimented to incorporate with 6.

Research Methodology / Research Design  Resea rch question  Hypo thesis (optional)  Data collection method

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CB as well as the cement bricks. The research’s aim is to examine the efficiency of thermal conductivity of cement brick integrated with cigarette butts. In the efforts to successfully examining the efficiency of the thermal conductivity, various measures must be taken into consideration to ensure that any unwanted complications can be avoided. This can be achieved by fulfilling the research objectives. As for that, the research design of this experiment was obtained in order to fulfill the research objectives in the pursuit of achieving the research aim while identifying whether the hypothesis is accepted or not.

1. Research Question Research question involve the answerable question of an issue. After the idea of study is stated, the research question is approachable. In this research, the research question is entirely focused on the variables. Such research questions are as follow: i.

Is the amount of cigarette butts to be added into cement bricks optimal?

ii.

Are there any differences between the thermal conductivity of the cigarette butt-cement bricks with the ordinary cement bricks?

iii.

Are there any changes occur in terms of properties of cigarettebutt bricks? Are there any changes of cigarette-butt bricks properties if the ratio of CB varies.

2. Hypothesis The supposition of this research is a null hypothesis in regards to the aim. The hypothesis is the addition of cellulose acetate cigarette filters into the cement brick will reduce the thermal conductivity.

3. Data Collection Method The data collection method applied in this research are solely depending on the Experimental Method. This method will be involved in manipulating one variable to determine if the changes in one variable may cause changes in another variable. In this case, the manipulating variable (cigarette butts) will be the key changing factor to determine whether the changes of cigarette butts would cause changes in terms of thermal conductivity of the observing variable (cement bricks). Specified procedure which includes multiple steps will be followed precisely to ensure the objectives and aims are achieved. The draft of procedure includes Preparation of apparatus & materials including cigarette butts, materials of cement bricks and thermal conductivity meter, preparation of cement bricks and cigarette-cement bricks according to the specified ratio, observation of thermal conductivity of the bricks, observation of changes in the properties of cigarette-cement bricks, tabulation of data and analyzing the data. 7.

Significance / Applied value of the research

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This research is expected to provide an innovative solution of thermal conductivity reduction of the cement bricks integrated with cigarette butts. It is vital towards the construction industry as the output of this research will provide a continual development of sustainable material application while providing a simple solution towards the reduction of thermal conductivity and indirectly reduces the overall temperature of the building to ensure the thermal comfortability. On the other hand, this finding will also provide an alternative for the reusability of cigarette butt wastes.

8.

References

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Agne, M. T., Hanus, R., & Snyder, G. J. (2018). Environmental Science Minimum thermal conductivity in the context of diffuson. 609–616. Ajayabi, A., Chen, H., Zhou, K., Hopkinson, P., & Wang, Y. (2019). Regenerative Buildings and Construction systems for a Circular Economy.

Lee, W., & Lee, C. C. (2015). Developmental toxicity of cigarette butts 1(2),1-23 Lim, K. H., Teh, C. H., Heng, P. P., Pan, S., Ling, M. Y., Fadhli, M., & Yusoff, M. (2018). Source of cigarettes among youth smokers in Malaysia \ Miller, M. R. (2017). Understanding Cigarette Butt Littering Behavior on Public Beaches : a Case Study of Jekyll Island , Georgia. Mohajerani, A., Kadir, A. A., & Larobina, L. (2016). A practical proposal for solving the world’s cigarette butt problem: Recycling in fired clay bricks. 2-24. Mohajerani, A., Tanriverdi, Y., Nguyen, B. T., Wong, K. K., Dissanayake, H. N., Johnson, L., Rezaei, A. (2017). Physico-mechanical properties of asphalt concrete incorporated with encapsulated cigarette butts. 69–80. Munir, M. J., Kazmi, S. M. S., Wu, Y.-F., Hanif, A., & Khan, M. U. A. (2018). Thermally efficient fired clay bricks incorporating waste marble sludge Ozturk, S., Sutcu, M., Erdogmus, E., & Gencel, O. (2019). Influence of tea waste concentration with brick clay mixtures. Phonphuak, N., & Chindaprasirt, P. (2018). Utilization of Sugarcane Bagasse Ash to Improve Properties of Fired Clay Brick. 45(4), 1855–1862. Qureshi, U. (Novia U. of A. S. (2015). Interpreting Environmental Risks of Cigarette Butt Litter at Novia University of Applied Sciences - Campus Raseborg. Sarani, N. A., Tun, U., & Onn, H. (2015). Thermal Conductivity Of Fired Clay Bricks Incorporated With Cigarette Butts. 1–26. Tao, L. U. O., Zhaojing, Z., Jinliang, Z., & Chaowei, S. U. N. (2019). Experimental Study on Concrete Incorporated with Cigarettes. 4–10. Umberto, B., Tronchin, L., & Benedetto, N. (2018). On the Effects of Variation of Thermal Conductivity in Buildings in the Italian Construction Sector. 1–17. Wong, L. P., Alias, H., Aghamohammadi, N., Meriam, N., & Sulaiman, N. (2018). Community Needs Assessment in Relation to Urban. 31(9), 705–711. TOTAL MARKS FINAL 40% Marks

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Name of Assessor:

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Signature:

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Date:

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