Week 2

Literature Review 📃

What is a literature review? 🤔

It is a survey of literature such as books, articles, write-ups, and other sources that help you address the important issues, theories, and concepts relevant to your research area.

Why do we need to do a literature review? 😮

It is important as it examines sources relevant to your research area and aims to provide a critical evaluation and summary of them. It also helps to critically analyze the information gathered by identifying gaps in current knowledge for e.g. showing the limitations of theories and point of view. The main reasons as to why literature review is important is that

1. Allows for assessment of the current state of research on a topic 
2. Identification of experts on a particular topic 
3. Identification of key questions about a topic that need further research
4. Helps steer clear of plagiarism 

What makes good literature review? 

There are 5 main points that make a good literature review which are:

1. Source must be relevant and reliable
2. Must lay a strong foundation for the research topic
3. Narrow enough to eliminate irrelevant information
4. Wide enough to cover enough required on the subject
5. Strike a balance between sources supporting and opposing a particular aspect or argument

Brainstorming ⚡

This week we had to come up with ideas that solve our problems. We thought of things that irritate us, will make our life easier, something that helps us, our friends and family members.

We brainstormed 🤔 a bunch of ideas that will help us solve these thoughts and categorized them based on its relativity. 

💡 Our ideas :

Beauty/Clothing 💄	Phone-related 📱	Electronic devices 📶
perfume that last 48h  Sorting cloth machine  Clothes that keeps you cool Automatic hair dryer	A portable charger that uses solar energy  Phone cover that protects the phone	Wi-fi everywhere Find my AirPods An alert button that's really small Mini tracking device Devices that sends voice note to computer and type it out Hand carried translator A Voice calendar  How to control weather

Relief medicine 💊	Environmentally-saving products 🌍	Household & kitchen items 🏡
Medicine that gets rids of soreness immediately  Unbreakable glass Extract all the energy /nutrients from food	Waterproof paper Reusable paper Waterproof packaging	Instant cold water Surface sterilizer  Portable pillow Self watering pot An automated scraper for jars Sofa cleaner

At first, we were frustrated 😖 as all our ideas did not seem to meet the requirements despite brainstorming over 20 ideas as you can see above. We tried and tried again but still could not get an approved idea. We realized that we did not understand the objective of the goal. We decided to re-track and re-evaluate our mindset. Eventually, we slowly headed in the right direction with the help of Dr. Noel.

Our problem statement :

In the hot and humid 🔥 weather in Singapore, where fresh cool water 💧 is needed at all times, it is nearly impossible to have cool water in hand. What can we do?

So, we thought of…. 

Self-Cooling water Bottle!

This product is a water bottle that can keep or cool hot/warm water using a refrigeration system. The reason for this is that our water bottles get hot very easily from the climate in Singapore. Consequently, drinking water is not very enjoyable and refreshing to many teenagers. Hence, to tackle this problem, we have decided to make a device that can make water cold. 

Many current commercial mini fridges are very bulky and heavy. For instance, the Cooluli Mini Fridge Electric Cooler and Warmer weights 4 lbs and measures 25.9 x 19.5 x 26.6 cm (Cooluli Mini Fridge Fast Cooling and Warmer, 2021). The same goes with 6L Portable Small Fridger Fast Cooling Function, with measurements 2.65 x 25.0 x 19.0 cm (6L Portable Small Fridger Fast Cooling Function, 2021) and the Mini Fridge Electric Cooler and warmer Portable Compact Personal Cosmetic Refridgerator Travel Home which measure 18 x 23 x 24 cm (Mini Fridge Electronic Cooler and Warmer Portable Compact Personal Cosmetic Refridgerator Travel Home, 2021).

Based on our research 🔍,

We have discovered that room temperature water is 20°C, slightly chilled water is 16°C, and cold water is 6°C. Taking into account that the Singapore annual mean temperature is 28.0°C in 2020, and that the highest recorded temperature is 37.0°C on 17 April 1983, our goal for the device is for it to reduce the temperature of water from 32.5°C (average of mean temperature and highest temperature) to 16°C and 6°C (What is the best temperature to drink water?, 2021).

Resources 📄:

No	Resource Type Peer-reviewed journals, Internet search engines, books, etc.	Title Article title, book title, etc.	Author(s)	Methodology Experimental, non-experimental, survey, interview, qualitative, etc.
1	Peer-reviewed journal	From science to practice: Development of a thermally-insulated ice slushy dispensing bottle that helps athletes “keep their cool” in hot temperatures	Paul B. Laursen	Non-experimental
2	Peer-reviewed journal	Attainability of the Carnot efficiency with real gases in the regenerator of the refrigeration cycle	Qiang Cao	Experimental
3	Article	Experimental Investigation on an Absorption Refrigerator driven by Solar cells	Sih-LI Chen	Experimental
4	Project	DIY Portable Mini Refrigerator	Opengreenenergy	Experimental
5	Peer-reviewed Journal	Reduction of Real Gas losses with DC flow in the regenerator of the refrigeration cycle	Qiang Cao, Zheng Sun, Zimu Li, Mingkau Luan, Xiao Tang, Peng Li, Zhenhua Jiang, Li Wei	Experimental

No	Currency of Research State the year of publication	Main Research Question(s)	Major Finding(s)	Similarity State any similarity in major findings observed among resources
1	2016	How to keep water cool in a water bottle	Thermal insulation is used for athletes's water bottles to keep them cool.
2	2018	How does the attainability of the Carnot efficiency is affected by real gases in the regenerator	90% of the Carnot Efficiency can be reached
3	2013	Is it possible to make a handheld absorption refrigerator driven by solar cells	It is possible to do so for outdoor use, and it is also lightweight, has a low price, and can be used in both the day and night. However, it has a low efficiency as it has a COP(coefficient of performance) of 0.25.
4	-	How to create a mini refrigeration system and how it works	It can be done by using simple and accessible things.
5	2019	How to improve the efficiency of the refrigeration cycle	The coefficient of performance of the refrigeration cycle is improved exponentially

Reflection 📜:

~Trisyia 🐌~

This week brainstormed ideas to produce a product. While brainstorming, I realized that it is much harder than I thought. This is because we had to meet the requirement of implementing chemical processes/theories into our product. I felt frustrated and a little incapable because we had been brainstormed over 20 ideas and still had not come up with a suitable idea. However, with time and patience, we eventually met our objective. After that, we had to research on our idea. I learned how to access peer-reviewed journals through the SP library. I did not know we had access to a website that accumulate so many approved and reliable sources. This definitely made our research easier and I will definitely implement this in my other modules.

~Jun Ying🚲~

For this week, at the start of the lesson, our lecturer told us to do something unexpected, which was to stretch as a class. I thought: What??? Stretching in the middle of class??? Since when did this turn into a PE lesson? However, I felt energized after doing it. I felt that this was a good way to start the day, and I might incorporate it into my morning routine. As for the main purpose of the lesson, we were tasked to ideate on a chemical product that improves our quality of life. Naturally, we were able to come up with many unsatisfactory parts of our lives, but we were having trouble thinking of a chemical product that could fix them. It was very frustrating to think about something that applies chemical engineering principles practically, as we had forgotten many of them after the holiday. Eventually, we came up with a water bottle that acts as a refrigerator. The rest of the lesson was quite boring as we had to do research on it, so that the water bottle could be made into a reality.

~John👽~

Week 2 was a very interesting lesson for me I would say. We started of with some stretching which is something you do not get see in class everyday. The stretching did help me get energized and awake as it was early in the morning and we had a long day ahead of use that day. When we started our work which was to think of ideas for our product, I initially expected it to be relatively easy but I will come soon regret those thoughts that I had. My teammates and I had many ideas, many good one in fact, however, there was a big issues with all our ideas. It does not have chemical engineering principles in them which was a requirement in our product. That is when everything suddenly became frustratingly hard to come up with a decent idea for a product that implements chemical engineering principles in it. We honestly struggled but eventually we managed to get a product. After that, research was done further on the product and we learn how to do a literature review which was also slightly challenging but for the most part doable. Overall, week 2 was intense but at the same time the feeling of bliss came when we were done with the product and the literature review.

References:

1. Svalbarði Polar Iceberg Water. 2021. What is the best temperature to drink water?. [online] Available at: https://svalbardi.com/blogs/news/best-temperature-to-drink-water [Accessed 29 April 2021].

2. Amazon.com. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.amazon.com/Cooluli-Fridge-Electric-CoolerWarmer/dp/B01G7IL3BS/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8> [Accessed 5 May 2021].

3. Lazada.sg. 2021. 6L Portable Small Fridger Fast Cooling Electronic Refrigerator Cooling Function. [online] Available at: <https://www.lazada.sg/products/6l-portable-small-fridger-fast-cooling-electronic-refrigerator-cooling-function-i1152110561-s4509798605.html?exlaz=d_1:mm_150050845_51350205_2010350205::12:12266637330!116209939886!!!aud-925830546902:pla-297963845945!c!297963845945!4509798605!141530281&gclid=CjwKCAjwj6SEBhAOEiwAvFRuKAEg8s49EE8Qd0F2jZhCfcL4RxfIS-G0SAw3fU5VZIPeBq2NyHR5TRoCRTkQAvD_BwE> [Accessed 5 May 2021].

4. Qoo10.sg. 2021. Mini Fridge Electric Cooler and Warmer Portable Compact Personal Cosmetic Refrigerator Travel Home. [online] Available at: <https://www.qoo10.sg/item/MINI-FRIDGE-ELECTRIC-COOLER-AND-WARMER-PORTABLE-COMPACT-PERSONAL/682235785?__currency=SGD&jaehuid=A165669331&gclid=CjwKCAjwj6SEBhAOEiwAvFRuKED-Ghr44nvGEejS5bU0C7GOomaSaagLQXf8W1SN_cg8QT6cCWlrphoCfscQAvD_BwE> [Accessed 5 May 2021].