TALK the talk: Payphone Booth in Malaysia (part 3)

Public Phone Booth’s Future Material

This article will describe material replacement or improvement on public phone booth based on the problem facing by current public phone booth in Malaysia.

Analysis

Plastic and aluminium, both materials has common problem caused by human. Both of the materials have the properties of slippery surface, which is usually good with attaching object. Therefore, being targeted as object to attach with sticky notes. Concrete usually has rough surface prevented sticky notices attached on it. However, it lacks aesthetic value when compared to aluminium. Plastic is considered the best material as the panel because of its economical price and lightweight properties. Fiberglass is by far the most suitable plastic to make the panel of phone booth because its strength and stability against weather.

Problem Need to Solve

The main problem need to be solved is vandalism caused by sticky notes. Majority of phone booths are still protected against damage from impact and environment issue. This is because majority of phone booth is made by fiberglass, which is strong and more stable than other plastic, and has a longer life-span from discoloration. As a conclusion, the major problem faced by phone booth is its surface that is attachable with other object.

Solution

The solution to solve the problem mentioned above is to change the surface properties of material used to build phone booth. In order to prevent object stick on material, the material itself should have tendency to prevent object from stick on it or a rough and irregular surface so that the sticky note cannot paste flat on the surface.

 Non-Stick Surface Material

A non-stick surface is a surface engineered to reduce the ability of other materials to stick to it. Non-stick is often used to refer to surfaces coated with polytetrafluoroethylene (Wikipedia, 2014). This material is suitable to solve the problem mentioned above.

1. PTFE (polytetrafluoroesthylene)

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer used in non-stick coatings. The well-known brand of PTFE is “Teflon”, founded by DuPont. This non-stick coating is usually used in coating of non-stick cookware. Originally, PTFE is a thermoplastic and remain white solid structure in room temperature.

2. Teflon

According to DuPont (n.d.) it stated that Teflon® is a registered trademark and a brand name owned by DuPont, and is used on a range of products. Teflon® brand represents a family of high-performance products that are used in a wide variety of industrial applications and consumer applications. The Teflon® brand has come to represent a variety of benefits to consumers including easy clean, nonstick, repellency and durability.

3. Silverstone Plastic

Besides Teflon, DuPont also released a more effective non-stick plastic coating called Silverstone. It is released on 1976, formulated with PTFE and PFA. It can be reinforced to increase durability to scratch and abrasion.

CONCLUSION

Public phone booth in Malaysia can replaced fiberglass to PTFE fiberglass as the shelter material. PTFE fiberglass is fiberglass coated with Teflon. It retained the strength of fiberglass as well as the benefits from Teflon. Besides that, fiberglass also can coated with Silverstone, which is a non-stick coating that stronger than Teflon. Teflon or Silverstone not only make object non-stick but also help make the surface easy to clean. These plastic coating not only solve the problem of sticky notes but also can solve the problem of stain. Since the surface becomes non-stick, stain or dust is easier to been removed. People can reduce the work on cleaning phone booth as rainwater is able to wash away the stain or dust stick on the surface. The stand of phone booth should remained using aluminium, because it is lightweight and has high aesthetic value than concrete. Aluminium can be coated with Teflon, making it has the same characteristic as PTFE fiberglass. Despite of having strong material, however the effective method to protect public phone booth is through the collaboration of every citizen to care of every facility. Every citizen should have the responsibility to protect and treat the facility provided with love and care. Citizen should stop any vandalism activity to maintain the scenery of city as well as leaving a good image for foreigner.

As the part of submission, student needs to provide a presentation chart about the subject that he or she choose to study about. In this case, mine is the presentation chart about payphone booth in Malaysia. 

References:

Dupont, 2014. What is Teflon®? [online] Available at < http://www2.dupont.com/Teflon/en_US/products/safety/what_is_it.html > Retrieved 18th January 2014.

How Products Are Made, n.d. Made How, Volume 7: Telephone Booth [online] Available at < http://www.madehow.com/Volume-7/Telephone-Booth.html > Retrieved 28th December 2013.

Pernec, 2010. HELO PayPhone Booths [online] Available at < http://www.pernec.com.my/PP_PPBooth.html > Retrieved 1st January 2014.

Pernec, 2010. Paypoint Overview [online] Availble at < http://www.pernec.com.my/paypointservices.html > Retrieved 1st January 2014.

Wikipedia, 2014. Non-Stick Surface [online] Available at < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-stick_surface > Retrieved 18th January 2014.

*The above article is part continue from the previous topic: Payphone Booth in Malaysia (part2). The solution provided is just a personal opinion and might not be 100% working. Again, the topic "Payphone Booth in Malaysia" is a subject for my HND coursework.