The materials industry and its related environments are reviewed from the viewpoints of:
1. Risk assessment, 1. Bioplastics, 3. Materials informatics, 4. Renewable energy, 5. Technical communication
The basic understanding of the intercorrelation between environmental/energy issues and the materials engineering and sciences
Risk assessment, Bioplastics, Aerospace industry and composite materials, Renewable energy, Technical communication
Specialist skills | Intercultural skills | ✔ Communication skills | ✔ Critical thinking skills | ✔ Practical and/or problem-solving skills |
Before coming to class, students should read the course schedule and check what topics will be covered. Required learning should be completed outside of the classroom for preparation and review purposes.
Course schedule | Required learning | |
---|---|---|
Class 1 | Risk assessment and management of chemicals #1 For the proper management of chemicals (Ishii) Many chemicals have been industrially produced and used to bring significant benefit to people, but many are toxic and harmful to the environment and our health. This lecture will follow a general introduction to human health risk assessment and examines its basic concepts - hazard, risk, risk assessment, risk management, risk perception and risk communication. | Understand chemical hazards and principles behind chemical risk assessment and management. |
Class 2 | Risk assessment and management of chemicals #2 Basic of steps of risk assessment of chemicals (Ishii) Risk assessment is a transdisciplinary approach to solving public and environmental health science problems. It combines the key principles of exposure science, toxicology, and modeling to characterize chemical risks. This lecture will follow four basic steps of risk assessment: hazard identification, hazard characterization, exposure assessment and risk characterization. | Understand basic process and fundamental steps involved in conducting a health risk assessment. |
Class 3 | What is bioplastics? Basic evaluation of bioplastics (Kunioka) Bioplastics include biodegradable plastics which can be degraded to CO2 in controlled environment and biobased plastics which is produced from biomass resources. Kinds and trends of bioplastics in global market will be introduced. The reason why bioplastics are environmentally friendly materials will be explained. Biodegradability and biobased content of bioplastics based on ISO methods will be introduced. Certification scheme managed in global market will be introduced. In addition, making method of ISO standards will be explained. | Point of this lecture is understanding what is bioplastics including biodegradable plastics and biobased plastics.The second point of this lecture is understanding the evaluation method of biodegradability and biobased content of bioplastics based on ISO standards. |
Class 4 | Materials informatics (Xu) The basis of the materials informatics is reviewed from the viewpoints of database and the practical application to develop new materials is introduced. | Understand the basics of the materials informatics. |
Class 5 | Renewable energy 1 (Yoshida) 1. World energy supply/demand particularly focus on renewable energy. 2. Solar thermal energy technology Part 1. Energy supply and development trend of renewable energy are reviewed from the viewpoints of environmental issues. In addition, solar thermal energy supply technology is explained particularly focusing on the technology using parabolic curve. | Understand the world energy supply and development trend of the renewable energy. |
Class 6 | Renewable energy 2 (Yoshida) 1. Solar thermal energy technology Part 2. 2. High temperature thermal storage system technology. Solar thermal energy supply system using off axis reflection and thermal energy storage system are reviewed. | Understand the renewable energy particularly focusing on solar thermal energy. |
Class 7 | Technical communications between the research scientist and the society are discussed with a practical writing tool. (Yamamoto) | Understand the technical communications between the research scientist and the society. |
Materials used in class can be found on OCW-i.
Not required.
Student's course scores are based on the report submitted.
Not required