Each person “unknowingly swallows” a weekly average of microplastics equivalent to a credit cardhas assured, in an interview with EFE, the young Irish chemist Fionn Ferreira who, at only 22 years old, has developed an innovative solution to eliminate this type of polluting particles.
This proposal has allowed him to become a finalist in the Young category in the XVII edition of the European Inventor Awards 2023 of the European Patent Office (EPO) that will be decided in Valencia on July 4.
According to the data provided by the United Nations Organization, the seas and oceans already harbor more than 51 trillion microplastic particles, which is why it is “a problem of the first order” in a world that consumes “one million plastic bottles every minute and up to five trillion single-use bags annually”.
These particles threaten not only marine ecosystems, but human health itself, through the consumption of “seafood and fish in whose tissues these contaminants have been found” that also appear “when drinking drinking water or breathing air” according to Ferreira, who has confessed “personal impact” produced by this “alarming statistic”.
The search for solutions to this problem, recalled Ferreira, dates back to his childhood in Cork, on the southwest coast of Ireland, where every day he contemplated “contamination by plastic objects or packaging and its implications for the local environment” since , when fragmented into micro and even nanoparticles, become an element “harmful to the health of all organisms that ingest them.”
Your personal response to “one of the world’s most pressing ecological challenges” is the invention of a unique substance worldwide, called ferrofluid, which he defines as “a reusable liquid that attracts plastics from the water and collects them using magnets” to later “allow the separation of the compound and marine debris.”
The technology has been developed through collaboration with several engineers and scientists who have opted for “innovation in methods for capturing and suppressing microplastics from various sources” and with research institutions, environmental organizations and investment entities that have allowed “the validation of these techniques in real scenarios through exhaustive tests.
The results obtained so far are “promising” with “87% microplastic removal in almost all tests”Therefore, as he explained to EFE, there is still room for improvement both in terms of technological expansion and optimization of efficiency and financing resources.
In parallel, it promotes other options to mitigate the proliferation of conventional plastics, such as the adoption of biodegradable or compostable materials, “designed to break down more easily in the environment.”
Reducing the persistence of plastic waste and the potential risk of its fractionation through more sustainable practices will allow “taking a significant step towards reducing the damage of microplastics on ecosystems and human health in the long term,” he insisted.
If the current rate of dumping is not reversed, by 2040 the volumes of plastic – which already constitutes 85% of the waste that reaches the oceans – will almost triple, with an annual amount of “between 23 and 37 million tons », according to the UN.
2023-06-30 12:58:55
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