A walk on the beach led this teenager from Ireland to develop his project on microplastic extraction from water for the annual Google Science Fair. The project won the grand prize of $50,000 in educational funding.
A teenager from Ireland may have found a way to rescue our oceans from the growing plastic pollution problem.
A walk on the beach led Fionn Ferreira to develop his project on microplastic extraction from water for the annual Google Science Fair. The project won the grand prize of $50,000 in educational funding at this year's event.The 18-year-old said that while he was out on that walk in his coastal hometown of Ballydehob, he ran across a stone with oil and plastic stuck to it -- something he says he's become more aware of in recent years.
Are you eating plastic? 01:30In the presence of water, ferrofluids -- nontoxic magnetic liquids made up of oil and magnetite, an iron- based rock mineral -- attract the microplastics because both have similar properties. For his project, Ferreira added oil and magnetite to water and mixed in a solution emulating plastic waste in the ocean. When the microplastics latched on to the ferrofluids, Ferreira dipped a magnet into the solution three times to remove both substances, leaving clear water.
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