After the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, a Colorado high schooler has found a better way to test the level of lead in water.
Sourced from thecut report (30/10/2017) Gitanjali Rao, an 11-year-old seventh grader at Lone Tree, Colorado just won the Scientific Young Scientist Challenge 3M 2017 Challenge, took home $ 25,000 for a water quality test kit he found, called Tethys.
Rao was inspired to create this device after witnessing the Flint water crisis revealed in recent years. By 2014, after the city of Flint slashed costs by diverting the source of water used for tap water and failing to cope properly, the level of tin in urban water increased sharply.
By 2015, scientists who tested water found that 40 percent of the town's homes have high lead levels in their water, and recommended the country state that water in the Flint area is not safe to drink or cook. In December of that year, the city declared a state of emergency. Researchers have found that toxic water causes terrible effects such as increasing the number of fetal deaths and causing a Legion outbreak that killed 12 people.
Rao's parents are engineers, and Rao sees his parents as they try to test the metal content in their own home water. Rao sees news of cutting-edge technology to detect harmful substances on the MIT engineering department's website (which he checks regularly only to see "if anything new," as reported by ABC News), then begins working on creating Tethys. This device works with carbon nanotube sensors to detect metal levels faster than other advanced techniques, then sends the results to smartphone applications.
As one of the 10 finalists for the Young Scientist Challenge, Rao spent his summers working with 3M scientists to improve the device, then presented the prototype to a panel of judges from 3M and schools across the country.
The water contamination crisis in Flint is still ongoing, and Rao's discovery can provide significant change. In March 2017, the city government of Flint announced that city tap water would be recoverable within the next two years.
The State of Michigan now plans to replace the water pipes distributed to 18,000 households by 2020. Until then, residents using water filters can use devices such as Tethys to ensure the water they drink is safe. Rao plans to put most of the $ 25,000 prize money back into the project in hopes of making the device commercially available.