Three teenagers found a way to turn styrofoam into carbon water filters for a school science project.
Three teenagers found a way to turn styrofoam into carbon water filters for a school science project.
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Somebody get Elon Musk on the goddamn phone!
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I was told melting Styrofoam released poisonous gasses growing up. Is that not true?
I wonder which one of them did all the work.
They got a nice award for this; https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/at-scientific-american/winners-of-the-scientific-american-innovators-award-turn-trash-into-water-filters-video/
You’re telling me I can burn all my Styrofoam and use it’s ashes to cure hangovers? Awesome.
I will just continue using it to create napalm, because the world needs more arsonists
Something tells me they didn’t do all that work on their own…
Which one has the family member who works as a scientist/engineer who did the work i wonder.
burning styrofoam releases tremendous amounts of green houses gases. In terms of green houses gases it is worse than burning coal because a lots of energy went into making the styrofoam in the first place. Styrofoam is basically solidified hydro carbons and burns extremely well. Many trash facilities will burn it to generate more energy than burning paper or wood trash. It would be more cost efficient to use the styrofoam to generate electricity to run a plant that processed trees into activated carbon.
There is a reason styrofoam is being used less and less. Any way you get rid of it just pollutes more. The only effective way to recycle it is to just keep reusing it as it can always to reformed into packing peanuts many times
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Change the title to “three crazy teenagers…” and this is a 90’s SNICK pilot
…and of course they patented it, insuring it will never be used by anyone.
Yet we are funding scientists to record bees to determine why they stop buzzing during a solar eclipse. Give these kids a bajillion dollars and throw these other moron scientists in the scrap bin. I love seeing practical science, it’s usually the young ones who get it.
What percentage of their parents work at google? What are the percentages that are possible? What is the most likely percentage? Why?
“I don’t know what to do with my hands”
You are now the heads of the EPA.
Efficient one
Creative, I LOVE THIS
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Put Em on Shark Tank.
I believe the children are our future…
These kids give a better presentation than 99% of post-grad students I know
When I was these kid’s ages I was finding a good use for Styrofoam as well … we made a napalm-like substance with it to burn stumps out.
These kids are clearly more advanced than I was.
So, they learned the hard way that you can burn styrofoam back into carbon. That’s what we’re trying to avoid doing…
my daughter rotted oranges in my fridge.
Activated carbon is useful in so many things besides water filtration.
So how much styrofoam is needed to actually make a filter? If people are producing less and less sytrofoam won’t these kids eventually need to produce styrofoam to make their filters? which is what they are trying to avoid doing?
Seriously …Wtf….
One of those has really big hands…
Anyone feeling a bit mixed on the patenting of the technology?
Is that third kid the backpack kid?
I’ve read so many things like this about cheap ways to get water purified for them but the problem still persists? Are the inventions suppressed or something? Dunno why it isn’t fixed yet.
how about not using materials we cannot recycle? oh wait, that would be too simple
This is exactly the crap that the one front page askreddit post is talking about. Their parents did all the work and they expect us to believe they figured this all out on their own.
This is a cool chemistry experiment and awesome how they explain in detail the process, but a terrible way to “recycle” Styrofoam… look at all that energy used converting and all those gasses released. Shame on their parents for embarrassing them like this in public. I would have been way more impressed if this was not presented in a way that makes it seem like this is a solution to a problem. The sad truth is that if it made dollar sense to recycle Styrofoam they would just chuck it into plasma arc waste recycling plants.
Looks like Aly Raisman from the past.
Meanwhile in middle school my teacher seperated us in tables divided by intellegence. Students with low test scores/ who are dumb sat in the back row tables. The last table of the last row where the academically stunted kids. Guess where I sat.
Oh man… this is funny. This boils down to the following:
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– Step 1) Don’t like styrofoam filling up the landfills? Burn that shit!
– Step 2) Use the ashes to filter water
– Step 3) Don’t worry about the industrial air pollution from burning thousands of tons of styrofoam
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It’s A-OK guys — when you burn something, it turns into magic nothingness with no consequences.
**A few problems .. Google backed this??**
.. styrofoam is sometimes produced with toxic metal catalysts (Arsenic etc)
.. the blowing gas in the styrofoam can also be toxic
.. petroleum products like styrofoam are carcinogens especially when they are heated
.. packing foam was never meant to be food grade .. not exactly what I want to filter water with .. of course if you are dying of thirst maybe you would gamble on it
They fuckin
good job kids!