AVONDALE STUDENT SEÁN WINS AFRICA TRIP AT YOUNG SCIENTIST
A PRIZE-WINNER in this year’s BY Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition is looking forward to travelling to Africa to see how his project could be put to use to help save lives.
Sean Byrne (18), a Leaving Certificate student at Avondale Community College, won the Self Help Africa Science for Development Award for his project examining the use of eggshells as a filtration system. The 18-year-old was delighted to discover that his prize included an Irish Aid-sponsored travel bursary, which will allow him to travel to Africa to further his work.
Seán is something of a veteran of the BT Young Scientist Expo having entered projects for the past four years and he had previously collected a second prize for a project he had submitted to the annual schools science fair.
‘I’m in sixth year now so I knew that it was my last year entering the BT Young Scientist contest. I really wanted to end it with an award, so I’m absolutely delighted and proud,’ said Seán.
For this year’s entry, Seán developed a project that uses eggshells as a filtration system to remove pollutants from water. He said he got the inspiration for his project from reading an article about the absorbent properties of eggshells:
‘I found that eggshells have an affinity for heavy metal irons. It means that they can chemically attract toxic irons from the water and remove them,’ he explained.
‘First, the water is put through a sand filter to remove any suspended solids. Then it goes through vessels that contain eggshells, which is where the purifying process happens. The last stage involves using UV lights and a second sand filter to further clean the water,’ he said.
Seán’s experiments have shown that the invention is capable of removing almost 100 per cent of metal contaminants present in water, including copper, lead and chromium.
Seán is now looking forward to his trip to Africa where he will learn more about how his research could work in practical terms.
‘I am aware that contaminated water is a global problem. In developing countries, 14,000 people die each day because of water pollution. I wanted to help find a solution to that problem,’ said Seán. ‘The beauty of this filtration system is that it’s low cost, energy efficient. It also promotes sustainability since we’re recycling eggshells! In addition, it can be made out of any material. My prototype uses glassware, but any locally available material could be used, such as wood or plastic,’ he added.
‘I am still exploring ways that this innovative filtration system could also remove micro-plastics from water,’ said Seán, who hopes to study Chemical Engineering at university.