17.09.2023
Fionn Ferreira: Removing Microplastics From Water
Irish environmentalist Fionn Ferreira has won third place in the Young Inventors Prize at the European Inventor Award 2023. He created a way to remove microplastics from water using a unique magnetic mixture. The 22-year-old chemistry master’s degree student and teaching assistant at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, created Ferrofluid, a magnetic liquid mixture, which binds to microplastic particles, separating them from water and allowing for their removal using magnets. The latest prototype uses a unique mixture, without requiring filters or chemicals, and removes more than 85pc of microplastics in a single pass. It can be used safely in drinking water, the process does not require filters, and it produces zero waste. It retains nearly all the magnetic liquid while removing microplastics. According to the United Nations, there are more than 51 trillion microplastic particles in the seas – 500 times more than stars in our galaxy – and this crisis of plastic waste accumulation is a pressing global issue that has deeply affected and inspired Mr Ferreira. Mr Ferreira, who is from Ballydehob, Co Cork, is working with the University of Texas to scale his invention to a commercial model. In 2019, he submitted his method for removing microplastics from water to several science fairs and was named the Global Grand Prize Winner at the Google Science Fair.
Credit: BRIGHTVIBES
Credit: BRIGHTVIBES
Poverty deprives people of adequate education, health care and of life's most basic necessities- safe living conditions (including clean air and clean drinking water) and an adequate food supply. The developed (industrialized) countries today account for roughly 20 percent of the world's population but control about 80 percent of the world's wealth.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
