
Irish Teenager Wins Global Science Award for Removing Microplastics from Water - rchaudhary
https://www.physics-astronomy.org/2019/09/irish-teenager-wins-global-science.html
======
bb101
_" Ferrier sat his Leaving Certificate exams last month at Schull Community
College and is due to attend university in the Netherlands. The teenager works
as a curator at the Schull Planetarium, has won 12 science fair awards, speaks
three languages fluently, plays the trumpet at orchestra level, and had a
minor planet named after him by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory."_

Anyone else feeling somewhat inadequate in comparison?

~~~
Tade0
Reminds me of my friend who, when asked about this girl he's been dating
lately, listed all her accomplishments(she has perfect pitch, good job etc.).

I think the author of this piece values these accomplishments more than the
guy in question.

~~~
falcor84
For what it's worth, I noticed that a similar list of accomplishments appears
on the guy's own website:
[https://www.fionnferreira.com](https://www.fionnferreira.com)

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
...and a photo of him accepting an award from Vint Cerf.

 _inadequacy intensifies_

~~~
barking
He's pretty driven all right. Good luck to him. Actually it says on a youtube
video that he is half German and half Portuguese though his parents gave him
an Irish forename!

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carapace
Tangent: I have a hunch that the Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube, or something based
on it, could be used to separate or just concentrate microplastics from water.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube)

> The vortex tube was used to separate gas mixtures, oxygen and nitrogen,
> carbon dioxide and helium, carbon dioxide and air in 1967 by Linderstrom-
> Lang. Vortex tubes also seem to work with liquids to some extent...

~~~
jazzyjackson
Like a constant flow centrifuge, amazing ... but water is not so compressible,
will it separate out based on dissolved solids effecting the density of the
solution? It could be used to reduce salinity in that case, no?

I would think if no ones figured out desalination via vortex, filtering
otherwise seems unlikely

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Removing dissolved salt is different to removing suspended microplastics
though.

There's lots of work done already on removing suspended particulates from
liquids, eg
[https://petrowiki.org/Removing_solids_from_water#Desanding_h...](https://petrowiki.org/Removing_solids_from_water#Desanding_hydroclones)
.

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pvaldes
Maybe it was the cynical in me, but I wonder why those "teenager will save the
world" relates are so popular (but often show so few results at long term).
Some awards seem just a way to pose, borrow some good ideas, obtain a photo
and a cover page and this is all.

Will be interesting to see how this ends

~~~
RomanBob
Because in reality the teenager's mental output isn't higher than a random
adult engineer.

But people just think "amazing" when a teenager does something, because people
now have very low expectation for teenagers.

~~~
TrackerFF
Teenagers also tend to have all the time in the world for hobbies, relative to
working adults.

I'm a firm believer that in order to reach virtuous levels in anything, you
really need to take advantage of your teenage years to nail down the
fundamentals.

I'm a musician myself, and spent almost every day between ages 13 to 20, often
up to 6 hours a day, practicing and playing my instrument. Way more often than
not, when I meet very talented people in different walks of life (music, tech,
sports, etc.), it's the same story.

Teens also tend to have a very naive optimism and ambition / drive. Nothing is
impossible, and no-ones gonna stop them. I think you need that no-breaks
mentality to succeed.

And lastly, people naturally root for young people. The next hope, and all
that.

~~~
imtringued
I disagree. Your teenage years are just your first opportunity to "master" a
skill. If we take the 10000 hour rule as an example it takes 5 years of
continuous effort. Between the age of 12 and 18 there is plenty of time for
that. After that you go to higher which lets you master your second skill.
After that you go to work and master your third skill and so on.

The only difference is that during your teenage years you get to choose. There
is no pressure to get a "useful" degree or find a high-paying job.

Something obvious: Just because you have these opportunities doesn't mean you
automatically take advantage of them and become virtuous. A lot of people
waste their opportunities in exchange for something else.

~~~
wallflower
> If we take the 10000 hour rule as an example it takes 5 years of continuous
> effort.

While your point about about teenagers having lots of discretionary time to
become better at what they choose to pursue is very valid, the 10,000 hour
rule is a distortion of the findings of a study on accomplished violinists. It
is not broadly applicable. The tradition of violin playing has hundreds of
years of teaching and quantifiable and measurable performance indicators.
Other fields, not so much.

------
tempodox
> At present, no screening or filtering for microplastics takes place in any
> European wastewater treatment centres.

This seems to be a hole that needs plugging. Regulations that prohibit the use
of this stuff altogether would be even better.

~~~
kwhitefoot
> Regulations that prohibit the use of this stuff altogether would be even
> better

A lot of microplastic is from textiles. If you ban all sources of
microplastics you'll be back to wearing only wool, cotton, silk, linen, and
leather.

A lot of the remainder is from plastic single use containers. Instead of
banning them they could simply be returned to the shop from which they were
bought for recycling as is done for most drinks containers (both plastic and
aluminium) here in Norway.

Banning plastic bottles would mean a substantial increase in energy use
because the alternative is glass which is much heavier and more costly to
recycle. Perhaps we could switch to aluminium for more containers.

It fashionable now to complain about the deliberately created microplastics
like those used in cosmetics but the vast bulk come from wear and tear on what
are now effectively traditional materials.

~~~
em-bee
> If you ban all sources of microplastics you'll be back to wearing only wool,
> cotton, silk, linen, and leather.

what would be wrong with that? i'd be all for it.

it's also possible to make plastic containers and bottles reusable.

------
phnofive
Previous:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20600906](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20600906)

~~~
phnofive
Also, Fionn Ferreira’s winning fair entry:
[https://www.googlesciencefair.com/projects/2018/2c3f6207b15f...](https://www.googlesciencefair.com/projects/2018/2c3f6207b15f46cb4bb66a56095bd6d901ccfa42e7e51600c766df7856590c4e)

------
pmoriarty
_" Microplastics or microbeads are mostly used in soaps, shower gels and
facial scrubs to exfoliate skin..."_

So, wait... If we just stopped using microplastics in soaps, shower gels and
facial scrubs we'd mostly stop dumping microsplastics in to the environment?

But we don't because we'd rather have this totally optional, cosmetic benefit?

Humans are so stupid.

~~~
abadar
Ocean microplastics come from trash being beaten into tiny pieces by waves,
wind, and radiation from sunlight, not really exfoliating beads, straws, or
glitter.

~~~
trickstra
Source please.

Only the pieces that are visible enough to be still recognizable make it into
photos in news articles. The real data is very different, especially when you
are looking for the micrometer-sized plastics that end up killing fish or
getting into bottled water.

Also I noticed the term "microplastics" is used for two different things - one
are fragments of plastic size 1-5cm, the other is the size of glitter
particles and smaller. It is the second one that's more of a concern.

~~~
miemo
not OP but

[https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/pollution-ecology/the-
dow...](https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/pollution-ecology/the-down-low-on-
microplastics/)

pretty much a google search away

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EGreg
I am awed by the teen and his accomplishments to date. But serious question:
how can this be used in vivo, say in the ocean?

The magnetite left behind seems toxic also. When I saw it being dropped in the
water, I wondered how the fish are going to survive all that.

Microplastics that settle to the bottom of the ocean might be collected
somehow. The rest are dispersed by ocean currents in a vast, vast volume of
water, especially colloidal plastic. How would we have enough magnetite to do
any of this?

I really hope there can be some plastic-eating bacteria that will break down
microplastics and won’t get out of control and create a worse problem

[https://www.popsci.com/bacteria-enzyme-plastic-
waste/](https://www.popsci.com/bacteria-enzyme-plastic-waste/)

However we as a society must switch away to biodegrdable plastics! Why haven’t
we done this for decades, same as with electric cars? Governments are
unwilling to use pigovian taxes and tariffs to subsidize eco-friendly
alternatives.

~~~
hoorayimhelping
The idea is you treat waste water with this before it goes out to the ocean.

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ummonk
This seems like it should deserve way more attention than Ocean Cleanup.

~~~
Azrael3000
It should not be a competition about anything, instead all the efforts should
be supported to solve the plastic issue, from reduction of use to clean-up.

~~~
ummonk
What do you mean "all the efforts"? The global economy is 80 trillion dollars
a year. Should all of that be focused on various ocean plastic projects?

------
luord
Bright kid. If he's going to study something related to hydraulic engineering,
he'll very likely accomplish good things along this line.

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Yuval_Halevi
Young entrepreneurship at its best

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choonway
the system tries to breed heroes, but that's not how they're made.

------
eaenki
The article cites he will go to uni in the Netherlands. Why not
MIT/Harvard/Stanford/Oxford/Cambridge?

~~~
Dobbs
The stereotype goes that the Dutch have forgotten more about hydraulic
engineering than other countries have ever known. There is a grain of truth in
this. If he wants to continue his current work then the Netherlands is one of
the best places.

Plus many Europeans don’t want to go to the US. Not for anything more than a
vacation. This view has strengthened over the last several years.

------
JoeAltmaier
Sure, but why? What harm do these things do?

I know, lots of articles are published that cite one another. But none of them
have any actual harm documented. They just vaguely refer to one another with
"It's well-known that these things are harmful" and then cite another article
that says the same thing.

It reminds me of 'solar roads', another hyped-up internet sensation based on
nothing.

~~~
stefap2
Evidence suggests microplastics in water pose ‘minimal health risk’ (bbc.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20766496](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20766496)

~~~
hinkley
Having trouble finding a reference but I recall that they used to comment on
how certain pollutants stick readily to plastics.

So while the plastic might not be absorbed, can we say the same thing about
what’s stuck to the plastic?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
That's where the FUD comes in. With no evidence of any kind, everybody can get
excited as they like about the possibilities.

Science involves measuring things. So far, all that's been measured
(unreliably) is that these things exist.

