Detaily projektu

I watched a documentary about water which was called "iklim değişikliği ve biz" (climate change and us) at National Geographic Channel. In this documentary, I realized that everyone does not reach clean water which is limited. Then, I researched about this problem. I looked at UNESCO reports about this subject. In terms of those reports, clean water is one of the human rights. Unfortunately, the huge population can not reach, especially undeveloped country citizens. How can humanity handle this problem? What can I do for those people and our future? I come up with a solution. In my school, one of the extracurricular activity of our science department is about nano technology. My teachers told us that Nanotechnology is used in variety of areas such as space technologies, health domain, and water purification. I thought about using this technology in generating clean water sources. I searched for water purification technologies which uses nanotechnology. And I realized that, these technologies exist but they are expensive and complicated. I imagine that a cheap and simple solution can be found in the future. I, considering myself as a future scientist, designed a project. Although, I could not implement, I tried to develop a sustainable nanotechnology solution, and showed it in the poster I prepared.

The recent report entitled 'Water for People - Water for Life' of the UNESCO says that 1.1 billion people lack access to improved water supply and 2.4 billion lack access to improved sanitation. İt is also stated, that water-related diseases have affected a large amount of the population. Recent advances strongly advocate that the use of nanotechnology based water-treatment systems have potential to reduce water related diseases, and other water quality problems. However, water purifying nano-science technologies are often complicated, and are expensive to run and maintain. In this project we recognized that nano-science has great potential for water purification, which can be a solution for increasing clean water resources. In this project our goal is to design a new water filtration system that is less costly, and sustainable.

RELATED WORK According to Gehrke, I., Geiser, A., & Somborn-Schulz, A. ,the adaptation of highly advanced nanotechnology to traditional process engineering offers new opportunities in technological developments for advanced water and wastewater technology processes. (Gehrke, Geiser, Somborn-Schulz, 2015) On the other hand,Fostering Nanotechnology to Address Global Challenges: Water report, which published by OECD states that the unknown impacts of nano-particles properties lies at the core of the ongoing health and safety concerns regarding the use of nanoparticles, including in water processing and treatment. (Fostering Nanotechnology to Address Global Challenges: Water, 2011, p35) Das, Hamid, Ramakrishna, and Chowdhury highlighted that the lack of cost-effective water purification technology has already aggravated the crisis of clean water and safe water for the rapidly growing population. The authors also point out that this issue which mentioned above, extremely serious and has been posing a big treat to global health, economic growth, sustainability ans social progress. (Das, Hamid,Ramakrishna, and Chowdhury, 2014, p 98)

APPLICATION Among many potential applications, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are great candidate materials for cleaning polluted water. CNTs are made of carbon, only a few nanometers across CNT membranes can remove almost all kinds of water contaminants.

IDEAS We, as an imaginative innovation researchers' team, suggest that the new technique which uses CNTs for cleaning polluted water could provide a simple answer to the problem of huge costs. Our empirical data will show that CNTs, which are improved by our methods are potentially efficient adsorbents for a variety of pollutants in both drinking and environmental waters. The process will be also really well to protect public from nanotechnology risks.

REFERENCES

* Nanotechnology; new report explores nanotechnology's future. (2007). Drug Week, , 340-340. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/206412598?accountid=9645

* Nanoparticles; nanotechnology for water purification. (2010). Science Letter, , 629. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/742489948?accountid=9645

*Working Party on Nanotechnology: Reports - OECD-”Fostering Nanotechnology to Address Global Challenges: Water, 2011, p35. (n.d.). Retrieved February 16, 2017, from http://www.oecd.org/sti/nano/reports.htm

* The united nations world water development report. (2013). Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001295/129556e.pdf

* Das, R., Ali, M. E., Hamid, S. B. A., Ramakrishna, S., & Chowdhury, Z. Z. (2014). Carbon nanotube membranes for water purification: a bright future in water desalination. Desalination, 336, 97-109.

* Gehrke, I., Geiser, A., & Somborn-Schulz, A. (2015). Innovations in nanotechnology for water treatment. Nanotechnology, science and applications, 8, 1.

NANOTECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS AND EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES FOR CLEAN WATER İTÜ DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION BEYLERBEYİ MIDDLE SCHOOL beylerbeyi@itugvo.k12.tr
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002156/215644e.pdf