CO-CREATION
We organized two different co-creation sessions, where professionals with varying expertise came together to brainstorm about the challenges and opportunities for Re-plex to be applied in the domain of nature restoration.
Co-creation 1
In this session, we got to know how the people who are already closely involved in the project value Re-plex as a material and what they believe the future of Re-plex looks like.
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Co-creation 2
In this session, where the participants varied from marine ecologists to urban innovators, we discussed investments, essential outcomes, and things that must be avoided to achieve a successful implementation of a support structure made from Re-plex, and more specifically, to determine key elements such a structure must include in order to be successful.
THE EXPERIMENT
Before it can make its debut on the market, the material needs to be tested on its biodegradability, design, and overall effectiveness as a nature restoration asset.
An experiment is done to test the biodegradability of the material under real-life circumstances. By placing small samples of the Re-Plex material in the water and measuring the weight and visual changes of that sample over an extended period of time, we could get an indication of how fast the material would degrade.
Next to that, controlled experiments were performed to test the material under different circumstances, namely UV light, salt water, tap water, and water from the Amsterdam canals. Data on the samples have been collected 3 times a week for 7 weeks, as well as parameters that might influence the biodegradation, such as PH, salinity, and water temperature.
To get an even deeper understanding of the rate of biodegradability of the material, we measured the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) over time. Do you want to learn more about COD testing? Click here