Imperial College London

Dr Elena Dieckmann

Faculty of EngineeringDyson School of Design Engineering

Lecturer
 
 
 
//

Contact

 

+44 (0)7492 929 145elena.dieckmann13

 
 
//

Location

 

Dyson School of Design EngineeringDyson BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

//

Summary

 

Publications

Publication Type
Year
to

12 results found

Valk S, Chen Y, Dieckmann E, Mougenot Cet al., 2023, Supporting collaborative biodesign ideation with contextualised knowledge from bioscience, CoDesign, Vol: 19, ISSN: 1571-0882

The objective of this work is to support co-creation of novel ideas in biodesign during fast-paced and facilitated workshops. We created a card-based tool which simultaneously provides knowledge on both ‘science’ and ‘context’. The tool was used to trigger and inspire collaborative ideation in two biodesign workshops in which participants from scientific and design backgrounds produced ideas for healthcare-related innovations. To understand the perception of the tool and the mechanism of scientific knowledge integration in ideation, we conducted post-workshop interviews with 10 participants. Our qualitative analysis shows that the exposure to contextualised scientific knowledge provided by the tool enabled participants to generate ideas that cover a wide spectrum from the micro-scale of bioscience to the macro-scale of socio-political contexts, and thus supported the acceleration of ideation in biodesign workshops.

Journal article

Childs P, Han J, Chen L, Jiang P, Wang P, Park D, Yin Y, Dieckmann E, Vilanova Iet al., 2022, The creativity diamond - a framework to aid creativity, Journal of Intelligence, Vol: 10, Pages: 1-20, ISSN: 2079-3200

There are many facets to creativity and the topic has a profound impact on society. Substantial and sustained study on creativity has been undertaken and much is now known about the fun-damentals and how creativity can be augmented. To draw these elements together a framework has been developed called the creativity diamond, formulated based on reviews of prior work as well as consideration of 20 PhD studies on the topics of creativity, design, innovation and product development. The framework embodies the principles that quantity of ideas breeds quality through selection, and that a range of creativity tools can provoke additional ideas to augment our innate creativity. The creativity diamond proposed is a tool consisting of a divergent phase as-sociated with the development of many distinctive ideas and a convergent phase associated with the refinement of ideas. The creativity diamond framework can be used to prompt and help select which tool or approach to use in a creative environment for innovative tasks. The framework has now been used by many students and professionals in diverse contexts.

Journal article

Dieckmann E, Onsiong R, Nagy B, Sheldrick L, Cheeseman Cet al., 2021, Valorization of waste feathers in the production of new thermal insulation materials, Waste and Biomass Valorization, Vol: 12, Pages: 1119-1131, ISSN: 1877-2641

Poultry has become the primary source of dietary protein consumed globally and as a result the by-product feathers are an increasingly problematic industrial waste. Developing a circular economy for feathers is, therefore, an important research area that provides an opportunity to make use of the unique combination of properties of this abundant natural material. This paper reports on the thermal properties of novel feather-based thermal insulation materials. Waste feathers were collected, cleaned and processed into fibres, which were then used to form air-laid nonwoven materials. These have a high fibre content and exploit the excellent natural thermal insulation properties of feathers. The performance of the novel materials developed are tested in order to outline the influence of temperature and density on thermal conductivity and dynamic water sorption. Results are compared to a range of commercially available thermal insulation materials for buildings manufactured from denim, hemp, sheep wool, PET and mineral wool. It was found that air laid feather-fibre fabrics have comparable performance to other fibrous materials and have a thermal conductivity of 0.033 W/(m K) for samples with a density of 59 kg/m3. This is due to the low thermal conductivity of feather fibres and the void structure formed by air-laid processing that effectively traps air. These materials additionally offer improved sustainability credentials as they are derived from a readily available waste that is generally considered to be unavoidable. The paper concludes by highlighting the significant technical and commercial barriers that exist to using waste feathers in thermal insulation products and suggests areas for further research that can exploit the unique properties of feathers.

Journal article

Vilchez V, Dieckmann E, Tammelin T, Cheeseman C, Lee K-Yet al., 2020, Upcycling Poultry Feathers with (Nano)cellulose: Sustainable Composites Derived from Nonwoven Whole Feather Preforms, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, Vol: 8, Pages: 14263-14267, ISSN: 2168-0485

Journal article

Zhao Y, Dieckmann E, Cheeseman C, 2020, Low-temperature thermal insulation materials with high impact resistance made from feather-fibres, Materials Letters: X, Vol: 6, Pages: 1-5, ISSN: 2590-1508

Thermal insulation materials typically used in low-temperature applications such as pipelines for transporting liquid natural gas can become brittle and are therefore susceptible to impact damage. New feather-fibre biomaterials developed in this work have extremely low thermal conductivity but retain high impact resistance at low-temperatures. The experiments reported demonstrate the improved impact resistance of feather fibre biomaterials compared to foamed nitrile rubber. The microstructural characteristics of feather-fibre biomaterials that allow them to be used as impact resistant thermal insulation at low-temperatures are discussed.

Journal article

Dieckmann E, Sheldrick L, Tennant M, Myers R, Cheeseman Cet al., 2020, Analysis of barriers to transitioning from a linear to a circular economy for end of life materials: a case study for waste feathers, Sustainability, Vol: 12, Pages: 1725-1725, ISSN: 2071-1050

This research aimed to develop a simple but robust method to identify the key barriers to the transition from a linear to a circular economy (CE) for end of life products or material. Nine top-tier barrier categories have been identified that influence this transition. These relate to the basic material properties and product characteristics, the availability of suitable processing technology, the environmental impacts associated with current linear management, the organizational context, industry and supply chain issues, external drivers, public perception, the regulatory framework and the overall economic viability of the transition. The method provides a novel and rapid way to identify and quantitatively assess the barriers to the development of CE products. This allows mitigation steps to be developed in parallel with new product design. The method has been used to assess the potential barriers to developing a circular economy for waste feathers generated by the UK poultry industry. This showed that transitioning UK waste feathers to circularity faces significant barriers across numerous categories and is not currently economically viable. The assessment method developed provides a novel approach to identifying barriers to circularity and has potential to be applied to a wide range of end of life materials and products.

Journal article

Dieckmann E, Nagy B, Yiakoumetti K, Sheldrick L, Cheeseman Cet al., 2019, Thermal insulation packaging for cold-chain deliveries made from feathers, Food Packaging and Shelf Life, Vol: 21, Pages: 1-8, ISSN: 2214-2894

This paper reports on new thermal insulation packaging materials made from feathers. Clean and disinfected feathers from the poultry industry have been processed into fibres and air laid using commercial pilot-plant facilities to form non-woven feather fibre composite mats. This process can produce materials with different thickness and density by varying the processing conditions and mat composition. The thermal performance of non-woven feather fibre packaging liners has been compared to expanded polystyrene (EPS) to assess the potential for use in temperature-controlled deliveries. Experiments involved monitoring the time-temperature profile of meat substitute materials and coolants stored inside cardboard boxes lined with thermal insulation. The results show that feather fibre composite insulation has comparable thermal performance to EPS and may out-perform EPS under some conditions. It is concluded that low-cost, lightweight and sustainable non-woven feather fibre liners have potential to displace the materials currently used for delivering chilled and frozen foods and other products susceptible to degradation by high temperatures during delivery.

Journal article

Dieckmann E, Eleftheriou K, Audic T, Lee KY, Sheldrick L, Cheeseman Cet al., 2019, New sustainable materials from waste feathers: Properties of hot-pressed feather/cotton/bi-component fibre boards, Sustainable Materials and Technologies, Vol: 20, ISSN: 2214-9937

Feathers from poultry are an abundant, globally available waste. The current beneficial reuse for feathers involves autoclaving them to produce feather meal, an animal feed with low economic value. This paper reports on the production and performance of new feather-derived materials. These have potential to provide a higher value application for waste feathers. Feather fibres, cotton fibres and polyethylene/polypropylene bi-component fibres (blended 55:20:25 by weight) have been air-laid to form 20 mm thick non-woven pre-forms with a density of 0.14 g cm −2 . These were then hot pressed to produce materials with significantly higher density and improved properties. Optimum materials were formed by hot pressing between 150 and 160 °C at 6 MPa for 1 min. Lower temperatures resulted in poor fibre bonding and fibre pull-out during fracture. Higher temperatures caused thermal degradation of the feather fibres. The optimum feather fibre boards with a density of 0.77 g/cm 3 , corresponding to 31.3% porosity, had tensile strengths of 17.9 MPa a tensile modulus of 1.74 GPa and an elongation at fracture of 5.9%. These samples exhibited fibre fracture during tensile testing. Feather fibre boards have similar tensile strength, density and Young's modulus to particleboard, organic resin particleboard and flake board. Quantitative estimates of the economic and environmental benefits from using feather fibres to form feather fibre boards are discussed. The research advances sustainability by providing a new potential circular economy outlet for waste feathers and is part of on-going research to develop novel applications that exploit the unique properties of feathers.

Journal article

Dance S, Dieckmann E, Sheldrick L, Cheeseman Cet al., 2019, Sound absorption characteristics of air laid non-woven feather mats

Chicken feathers are an industrial waste that can be used to form sustainable materials suitable for use in sound insulation applications. Clean and disinfected waste chicken feathers were processed into fibres and these were air laid using commercial pilot plant facilities to form non-woven feather fibre composite mats. Varying the composition and processing conditions produced mats with different density, thickness and weight per unit area. The sound absorption coefficients of the non-woven feather fibre composites were determined using the impedance tube method. The tests used normal incidence and were completed over the frequency range from 63 and 1,600 Hz. The performance of feather fibre mats were then compared to commercially available sound absorption products.

Conference paper

Dance S, Dieckmann E, Sheldrick L, Cheeseman Cet al., 2019, Sound absorption characteristics of air laid non-woven feather mats

© INTER-NOISE 2019 MADRID - 48th International Congress and Exhibition on Noise Control Engineering. All Rights Reserved. Chicken feathers are an industrial waste that can be used to form sustainable materials suitable for use in sound insulation applications. Clean and disinfected waste chicken feathers were processed into fibres and these were air laid using commercial pilot plant facilities to form non-woven feather fibre composite mats. Varying the composition and processing conditions produced mats with different density, thickness and weight per unit area. The sound absorption coefficients of the non-woven feather fibre composites were determined using the impedance tube method. The tests used normal incidence and were completed over the frequency range from 63 and 1,600 Hz. The performance of feather fibre mats were then compared to commercially available sound absorption products.

Conference paper

Dieckmann E, Dance S, Sheldrick L, Cheeseman Cet al., 2018, Novel sound absorption materials produced from air laid non-woven feather fibres, Heliyon, Vol: 4, Pages: 1-13, ISSN: 2405-8440

This research has investigated the use of feather fibres to produce sound absorption materials as an alternative to the oil derived synthetic plastics that currently dominate the sound absorption materials market. In this paper we show that clean and disinfected waste feathers from the poultry industry can be processed into fibres and air laid using commercial pilot plant facilities to form non-woven feather fibre composite mats. By varying the composition and processing conditions, materials with a range of different properties such as thickness and density were produced. The sound absorption coefficients of samples was determined using the impedance tube method (BS EN ISO 10534-2: 1998), using normal incidence sound between 80 and 1,600 Hz. The data reported shows that air laid non-woven feather fibre mats have improved sound absorption coefficients compared to other natural materials used for sound absorption for a given thickness, particularly in the problematic low frequency range between 250 to 800 Hz. We conclude that air laid non-woven feather fibres have high potential to be used as effective and sustainable sound absorption materials in aerospace, automotive, buildings, infrastructure and other applications where sound absorption is required.

Journal article

Zhang T, Dieckmann E, Song S, Xie J, Yu Z, Cheeseman Cet al., 2018, Properties of magnesium silicate hydrate (M-S-H) cement mortars containing chicken feather fibres, Construction and Building Materials, Vol: 180, Pages: 692-697, ISSN: 0950-0618

Fibres derived from waste chicken feathers have been used to reinforce magnesium silicate hydrate (M-S-H) cement mortars and Portland cement mortars using up to 5% of fibres by weight of dry binder. The properties of the feather fibre mortar composites including pH, density, flexural strength, compressive strength, toughness, thermal conductivity and microstructure are reported. Feather fibres bond very effectively into M-S-H cement mortars which has significantly lower pH (∼10.8) than Portland cement mortars (pH ∼ 12.6). Increasing the feather fibre content reduces the density, compressive strength, bending strength and thermal conductivity of samples but increases mortar toughness. The optimal feather fibre addition was determined to be 4 wt% by weight of dry binder content, based on ease of mixing the samples and the strength, toughness and thermal conductivity data. Potential applications for feather fibre reinforced M-S-H cement mortars boards are discussed.

Journal article

This data is extracted from the Web of Science and reproduced under a licence from Thomson Reuters. You may not copy or re-distribute this data in whole or in part without the written consent of the Science business of Thomson Reuters.

Request URL: http://wlsprd.imperial.ac.uk:80/respub/WEB-INF/jsp/search-html.jsp Request URI: /respub/WEB-INF/jsp/search-html.jsp Query String: respub-action=search.html&id=00923175&limit=30&person=true