Arielle Del Rosario

2011-31062
3 minute Thesis draft
How many of you live in a concrete house? How about in a wooden house? Or
maybe both? What if I told you that just by living in a house like yours, you are
already contributing to environmental degradation? Let me take it one step further
and tell you that this building has probably blown up a tiny hole in the ozone and is
also partially responsible for the extreme weather we have been experiencing these
days. By now youre probably telling yourselves nah shes just exaggerating. I can
assure you, I am not. In fact, the construction industry is one of the largest
producers of waste, such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen. It is also one of the major
consumers of energy and resources worldwide. Now, because of this the
construction industry is slowly turning to building alternatives that are less harmful
to the environment but are just as strong and reliable as concrete and steel. The
most popular of which is wood/timber. Now, the problem with traditional timber,
such as oak, maple, pine, and narra, is that they take almost a lifetime to grow. And
at the rate were going these species will be extinct long before we are able to
replace them. So you see the problem is that they are renewable but not
sustainable. Fortunately for you and I, there exists an alternative that has the
potential to solve all of these problems. That is bamboo.
How you may ask? Well this may be explained by the simple fact that
Bamboo is actually a type of grass. Being a grass it grows more than twice as fast
as a regular tree. In fact, it reaches its maturity within 5 years. To be able to grow
this fast it needs a lot of food. And fortunately for us, that food is carbon dioxide. So
compared to its regular counterparts bamboo is renewable AND sustainable. It
basically neutralizes its carbon dioxide emissions during manufacturing just by
being alive. Moreover, it is durable, flexible, biodegradable, and just about
everything that ends with able. In fact it beats narra by a longshot in terms of
strength and elasticity. However, it has its own fair share of undesirable properties.
What I want to focus on is its ability to bond with glue because the failure of
bamboo construction materials can almost always be traced back to the weak
adhesion between the glue and bamboo fibers. One way to overcome this weakness
is to roughen the surface of the bamboo fibers. In this way I can give the bamboo
fibers more chances of accepting the glue. One special way to do this is through
plasma treatment. Plasma is like gas but it is made up of charged particles that are
moving at high speeds and energies. The idea is that these particles either collide
with the surface and remove parts of the fibers, or collide with the surface and form
new parts of the fibers both effectively roughening the surface of the fibers.
You'd be pleased to know that our preliminary results are very promising. We
have managed to make the bamboo absorb water immediately after plasma
treatment, considering that it is actually hydrophobic - meaning it hates water with
every fiber of its being. Literally. These findings reveal that it is possible to improve
the adhesion of the glue and the bamboo surface, and thus improving its potential
for structural applications.

This also means that maybe, just maybe, we can start dreaming of building cities
that are sustainable and reliable. And we'll call it a bamboo city.