HOT PRESS FOR LESOTHO

Of all of the work I have done so far as a student, one of my favourite projects has been the design of a hot press for use in Lesotho. This project was part of a multi-disciplinary team project course I took in my third year. My team consisted of myself and three other 3^rd year engineers, two of whom were in mechanical engineering and one of whom was in civil engineering. Our team was partnered with two graduate students from the department of chemical engineering.

These two graduate students, one of whom was from Lesotho himself, were working on a project to bring a new industry to this developing country. An existing industry in Lesotho is the production of aloe cream from the native agave plant. This process produces fibrous, straw-like plant matter as a waste product. The graduate students proposed combining these fibres with waste plastics (i.e. plastic bags) to form a composite material that can be used to make ceiling tiles. Not only would this provide jobs in a country with a very high unemployment rate, it would also improve the living conditions of the people by providing an insulating layer between their living space and the steel roofs commonly in use in dwellings. At the same time, the ceiling tiles produced would be made entirely out of waste materials, making them both inexpensive and environmentally friendly.

In order to combine the fibrous material from the agave plant and the waste plastics, a hot press is needed. Unfortunately, hot presses available on the market are prohibitively expensive. As such, it became my team’s task to design a hot press that would be inexpensive to make and operate and that could be built at polytechnics in Lesotho. After a great deal of research and consideration, we were able to provide the graduate students with a suitable design. Now, almost a year later, a prototype has been built and is being tested, and plans are being made to implement it in Lesotho.

I found this project to be particularly rewarding because of the potential it has to improve people’s standard of living. I feel that I have been given a great deal in life, and I value opportunities to use some of my gifts to make an impact in the world. This project is a great example of how engineering empowers me to do that. I hope that in whatever I do in my career as an engineer, I can make the world a better place.