From Woodlands, Texas, come Victoria Ou and Justin Huang, both 17, with their innovative solution to the pervasive challenge of microplastic pollution. These microscopic plastic particles infiltrate diverse ecosystems, from ocean depths to mountain peaks, and infiltrate household environments, including dust, food, and water.
The alarming truth is that humans unknowingly consume and inhale a significant quantity of microplastics weekly, posing potential health risks as these particles amass in vital organs such as the lungs, blood, breastmilk, and reproductive organs.
Ou and Huang’s clever device uses special sound waves to take out tiny bits of plastic from water, which is a big step forward in cleaning up plastic pollution. This new method, using high-pitched sound waves, is a major achievement in dealing with plastic waste.
They showed off their amazing invention at a big science fair in Los Angeles called the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Their project got them first place in the Earth and Environmental Sciences category, which was supported by Google. They also won the respected $50,000 Gordon E. Moore Award because their project could make good and positive things happen for the next generations.
“This is the first year we’ve done this,” Huang told Business Insider backstage after receiving their award. “If we could refine this — maybe use more professional equipment, maybe go to a lab instead of testing from our home — we could really improve our device and get it ready for large-scale manufacturing.”
While the ultrasonic method is still in its infancy, Ou and Huang remain optimistic about its capacity to cleanse drinking water and treat industrial and wastewater. They acknowledge the necessity for further refinement, potentially requiring access to professional laboratory equipment to ready their device for mass production. The urgency of their endeavor is accentuated by the unclear yet potentially dire health consequences of microplastics, including heightened risks of cancer, infertility, developmental disorders, and hormonal imbalances.
Ou and Huang’s journey began when they visited a water treatment plant while brainstorming for their ISEF project. They discovered that such facilities lacked tools to remove microplastics, as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not currently regulate them. This gap motivated them to focus on developing a solution. Existing methods to remove microplastics, like chemical coagulants, physical filters, and biological solutions, have significant drawbacks, including environmental pollution, high costs, inefficiency, and filter clogging.
“We wanted to find a solution to this because current solutions aren’t really effective,” Huang said.
The duo, friends since elementary school, aimed to create an environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and efficient solution. Their device is a small, pen-sized tube with electric transducers that generate ultrasonic waves. These waves create pressure, pushing microplastics backward while allowing clean water to flow through. Their tests showed that the device could remove 84% to 94% of microplastics from water in a single pass, targeting common types like polyurethane, polystyrene, and polyethylene.
“To reach that stage, I think we need a lot more processing,” Ou said. “This is a pretty new approach. We only found one study that was trying to use ultrasound to predict the flow of particles in water, but it didn’t completely filter them out yet.”
Huang agrees. “I hope we just are able to be able to scale this up, but first we have to refine it because this technology is still at its infancy,” he said.
Ou and Huang envision their technology being used in various applications, including wastewater treatment plants, industrial facilities, and even household items like laundry machines and fish tanks. However, they recognize that substantial work remains to scale and refine their technology. Their $50,000 prize will aid in further development, but for now, they are reveling in their unexpected success at ISEF. The achievement is particularly fulfilling for Huang, who describes it as a lifelong dream come true.
“We were just happy being able to go to ISEF. Originally, we weren’t expecting too much, but getting first place and the top award is much more than we ever expected,” Ou said.
“This is something that I’ve been dreaming of my whole life, so I’m still pinching myself trying to figure out if this is real or not,” Huang said.
