Fighting Microplastic Pollution in the Ocean with Magnets
Humans produce roughly 300 million tons of plastic waste annually. At least 10 tons of that ends up in the oceans. People experience it, first-hand, every single day. 20-year-old Fionn Ferreira, for example, loved the coastline where he grew up in southwest Ireland, but he hated the plastic that littered the beach and the sea. To make matters worse, the issue goes beyond the plastic we can see with our own two eyes.
Microplastics are smaller fragments, less than five millimeters, broken down from larger objects in the environment. Disturbingly, they have been found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench—the deepest ocean trench—and stuck in Arctic sea ice. The reality is that even if we solve the plastic problem, we’ll be dealing with microplastics long after.
On one of his many trips to the beach, Ferreira started to imagine a solution, inspired by how oil spill residue attracts plastic pollution. He made a mixture of vegetable oil and iron oxide powder, creating a magnetic liquid, also known as ferrofluid. He tested its effectiveness by blending and introducing microplastics from various everyday items like bottles and tires. Once they were attached to the ferrofluid, he could use a magnet to remove the solution with the microplastics in tow. After testing, he found his method was 87% effective.
Next on his list, Ferreira is creating an actual device that implements the method to capture microplastic as water flows past it. The goal is to put it inside water pipes to continuously extract pollution. He’s even working on a system for ships to use on the ocean.
In 2019, Ferreira won at the Google Science Fair, receiving an educational scholarship of $50,000 to develop his idea. He hopes to commercialize his idea in the next two years.