Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Add Upworthy to your Google News feed.
Google News Button

Microplastics are a huge issue plaguing our oceans — but at the same time, they're too small to easily remove from the water. However, 18-year-old scientist Fionn Ferreira may have discovered the solution for that. The West Cork, Ireland native won the Grand Prize at the Google Science Fair for coming up with a pretty genius way to take microplastics out of the ocean.

As explained in Ferreira's report on the Google Science Fair's website, Ferreira's project started when he read a paper by Dr. Arden Warner, who discovered that magnetite powder (aka iron oxide) could clean up oil spills, because the oil and magnetite powder are both non-polar. It gave Ferreira the idea to apply that idea to microplastics in water. So, he threw together a small test at home, and it worked.


"I used this method in the extraction of microplastics by adding oil to a suspension containing a known concentration of microplastics, these then migrated into the oil phase," Ferreira wrote in his paper. "Magnetite powder was added. The resulting microplastic containing ferro-fluid was removed using strong magnets."

Ferreira set out to scale up his experiment, even though he did not have access to a fancy laboratory or team of researchers. "I want to encourage others by saying you don't have to test everything in a professional lab," Ferreira told CNN. "That's why I built my own equipment."

As Ferreira explained in his Google Science Fair entry video, he went on to choose 10 different kinds of plastics to continue testing with, and he conducted more than 1,000 experiments. Eventually, he was able to conclude that his method would effectively be able to remove 85 percent of microplastics from water.

Microplastics are pieces of plastic debris that are five millimeters in length (about the size of a sesame seed) or smaller. Many microplastics come from larger plastic that is in the ocean (most of which is from discarded fishing nets and gear, but also from landfills and litter), which does not biodegrade — instead, it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, until it is eventually tons of tiny micrplastics.

Many microplastics are also microfibers, which are tiny pieces of synthetic fibers that enter the oceans when we do laundry. Clothing made from synthetic fibers (such as polyester and nylon) sheds microfibers in the washing machine, which then enter waterways and eventually funnel out to the ocean.

The microplastic pollution problem is so serious that marine life in the deepest trenches of the oceanwere discovered to have microplastic in their bodies. Plus, these microplastics are also polluting human bodies —a recent study found that humans swallow up to 2,000 microplastics every week.

As Ferreira said in his entry video, his next step will be to look into ways to scale his solution up to larger bodies of water so that it could eventually be used on a massive scale. His $50,000 prize from winning the Google Science Fair certainly could have helped with that, but he tells CNN that the money will be going towards his college tuition.

He is heading to the Netherlands this fall to study at the University of Groningen's Stratingh Institute for Chemistry. Hopefully Ferreira's studies will help him further improve this invention, and we will see it implemented in oceans one day in the near future.

Editor's Note: The article was originally published last year.

More For You

5 body language habits that make you instantly more charming

Make a killer first impression by shifting your body language.

5 body language habits that make you instantly more charming

The sayings, “Actions speak louder than words,” and “It’s not what you say, but how you say it,” are popular adages for good reason. Our silent body language speaks volumes, but we may not always be aware of what we’re saying with it. The way we hold ourselves, our gestures, and even how we make eye contact can make a huge difference in how people perceive us.

And that perception makes a difference. People form a first impression within seconds, and some research shows that traits like trustworthiness start to be judged within a tenth of a second of meeting someone.

Keep ReadingShow less
climate change, reforestation, drone technology, Myanmar, seed missiles, mangrove trees, Biocarbon Engineering

Drones are firing seed pods to plant forests — and it’s actually working

Technology is the single greatest contributor to climate change but it may also soon be used to offset the damage we’ve done to our planet since the Industrial Age began. In September 2018, a project in Myanmar used drones to fire “seed missiles” into remote areas of the country where trees were not growing. Less than a year later, thousands of those seed missiles have sprouted into 20-inch mangrove saplings that could literally be a case study in how technology can be used to innovate our way out of the climate change crisis.

“We now have a case confirmed of what species we can plant and in what conditions,” Irina Fedorenko, co-founder of Biocarbon Engineering, told Fast Company. “We are now ready to scale up our planting and replicate this success.”

Keep ReadingShow less
He was trapped in a 20-foot pit. Then he pulled off the ultimate escape.

A gravity-defying stunt

He was trapped in a 20-foot pit. Then he pulled off the ultimate escape.

A viral video from China has people questioning the laws of gravity—and then realizing it's all physics, skill, and a healthy dose of discipline. Posted on Xiaohongshu (also known as Rednote), the video shows a man inside a vividly colored pit, its vertical walls towering about 20 feet above him. There's seemingly no way out—until he starts running.

Don't try this at home.roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms

Keep ReadingShow less
What happens when you stop bathing

What happens when you stop bathing

No soap, no water, no nothing. If you don't shower regularly, that's your prerogative (though there's no guarantees your friends and family won't have something to say).

But beyond personal preference, there's actually a science behind what happens to your body when you don't routinely bathe.

This popular video delves into some of the physical effects that washing too little (or too often) has on your body.

Keep ReadingShow less
a man running up a vertical wall, three images

A gravity-defying stunt

Chinese man uses physics to miraculously escape from a 20-foot pit

A video went viral on the Chinese social media platform Rednote, also known as Xiaohongshu. It features a man who appears trapped at the bottom of a colorful pit—until he begins to run. The walls are nearly vertical and at least four to five times taller than the man (approximately 20 feet high). Yet, he manages to climb out in ten seconds or less by consistently running in a perfectly timed circle.


Keep ReadingShow less