AsianScientist (Mar. 8, 2022) – An all-girl crew from Batangas State College within the Philippines has garnered the highest prize at UNESCO’s World Engineering Day hackathon. The occasion targeted on designing options to sort out the United Nations Sustainable Improvement Objectives (SDGs), together with Clear Water and Sanitation. The winners had been introduced final week on March 4, 2022.
Established in 2020, the World Engineering Day for Sustainable Improvement goals to lift consciousness concerning the function of engineering improvements to deal with local weather change and advance the sustainable growth agenda. As a part of this yr’s celebrations, UNESCO hosted a world hackathon for younger engineers to plot inventive options to the three SDG challenges.
These three challenges had been—accountable and modern use of supplies and discount of non-biodegradable waste, bio-mimicry in engineering options, and water accessibility in a altering local weather.
Out of 125 groups from 23 international locations, the Filipina trio of Reaner Jacqueline Bool, Ghia Luwalhati and Nicole Elizabeth Tan received first place for his or her novel answer to scale back water air pollution. The crew aptly named themselves the WONDERPETS, brief for his or her venture known as “Water remediatiON utilizing metal-organic framework DERived from PET bottleS.”
Whether or not drinks or beauty merchandise, industrial plastic bottles are sometimes manufactured from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) supplies. Every year, round 14 million tons of plastic find yourself within the oceans, globally. Such rampant plastic air pollution threatens marine ecosystems, meals and water security, and human well being. Plastic bottles additionally contribute to local weather change when incinerated.
The WONDERPETS’ invention transforms PET bottles from water pollutant to water air purifier through the use of crystalline supplies known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). MOFs seem as repeating, cage-like constructions fashioned from steel ions linking up with natural molecules. That creates a extremely porous materials with a big inside floor space, making for wonderful adsorbents.
By performing like sponges, the adsorbent supplies take away pollution when put in water and so they can be utilized over and over. The crew derived these MOFs from a element of PET bottles, which they engineered to be water-soluble. Their course of is safer and prices lower than standard strategies that use poisonous natural solvents to synthesize MOFs.
Not solely does the invention deal with plastic air pollution however it additionally helps deal with contaminated water, serving as a doubtlessly sustainable approach to ship clear and secure water.
In the meantime, the runner-up crew consisted of Ammar Zavahir, Patrick Jilek-Rodriguez and Wilson Holland from the College of British Columbia Okanagan. They developed a cell rainwater harvesting system to provide clear water to indigenous communities in Canada.
Together with the successful entries, 9 finalist groups in whole produced brief movies showcasing their options to the three SDG challenges. These had been premiered throughout a UNESCO-hosted dwell streaming occasion on March 4, 2022.
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Supply: UNESCO; Illustration: Lieu Yipei/Asian Scientist Journal.
Disclaimer: This text doesn’t essentially mirror the views of AsianScientist or its employees.
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