The Challenge
Designing sustainability into a toilet disinfectant dispenser is may be useful, but it doesn’t sound the kind of design problem which undergraduate designers would tell the world they were doing. But sixty design students from Nottingham Trent’s Product design course accepted the challenge and now eighteen of the best designs are being further evaluated. So what are the problems they faced?

This project sought to design a new toilet disinfecting device, which would control the release of disinfectant at each flush.

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Work Link
The Institute was approached by Bob Knight, who is involved with Work Link, a social firm in Hinckley . He had devised a new device to measure out a specific amount of disinfectant into the toilet cistern at each flush so as to improve the environmental performance of toilet cleaning. He wanted to have his idea evaluated and if possible improved upon and so we took the project to the University’s Product Design team, headed up by Alan Crisp.

Sixty students were asked to design this product, to consider the suitability of construction materials, durability, ease of use, aesthetics, practicability, cost, marketability and re-cyclability. Issues such as lime scale, which might block up the device and the potential for future development were considered.

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The Designs
Eighteen of the best designs were chosen for further evaluation. Some used float techniques by which a measured amount of water was mixed with the disinfectant at each flush, before a float blocked the entry of water. Others used the existing flushing mechanism to operate the device.The limited space in modern cisterns and the wide variety of mechanical components created a number of limitations on the type of device which could be used.

Designs looked at dilution rates and the most suitable type of material to be used; polystyrene, ABS and polypropylene all featured, balancing out chemical resistance with ease of moulding and durability.

Having determined a best solution, the intention is to set up a social enterprise to manufacture and market this new product. Some commercial companies have attempted to make such a product, but with limited success. Often the number of flushes provided by the product does not live up to the numbers claimed. We are confident that our product will be much more successful.

An industrial version is now being considered, which will help to improve business performance.

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Further Information
For any more information about the project contact
Alan Crisp on 0115 848 6425 or email alan.crisp@ntu.ac.uk
or Bob Pick at the institute using the details below..