Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019) | Hacker News Reader

Irish teen invents magnetic liquid trap to remove microplastics in water (2019)

preparednessmama.com

129 pointsandrewshatnyy73 comments

The Ocean Cleanup project started somewhat like this. They made prototypes and extensive testing, and concluded honestly that cleaning the ocean isn't doable, so they turned to cleaning up the source of most oceanic plastic: rivers. Their river cleaning boat is completely different from their initial idea, but it works well.

Ideas are cheap; execution is hard...

While that’s true it’s also important not to discourage youngsters from having ideas. It’s all too common that us older, perhaps more jaded, folk will lecture others with comments like “ideas are cheap” but those ideas come from people with fresh enthusiasm to solve those problems and sometimes that enthusiasm does translate to execution.

So while I do agree with your point, we should still be encouraging ideas.

Oh I'm all for radical ideas, it's mostly this sort of hollow media coverage that annoys me.

This. It seems to me that every few years there's a new "brilliant" idea by an unlikely "inventor" that promises to solve every pollution problem in the ocean forever. But then it becomes clear that the brilliant idea on paper is impossible in practice, on scale, so it never comes down to anything other than wishful CGI.

The media around the topic is too focused on heroics, as if this is a puzzle with a nifty solution that only someone thinking outside of the box can come up with. Reality is less elegant.

Is it impossible? Or is it because our poor millitary couldn't spare $2Bil to execute on these ideas? Or the global military budget by all countries couldn't spare $20bil to execute?

I think it's very important to distinguish which things are technically not possible, vs we simply chose that our murder machines are more useful in the short term.

The article hints that the filtration process could happen in washing machines, even further upstream (so to speak)

Probably a good idea to filter the "output", but I'd imagine this would be interesting for a lot of people to filter tap water as it comes in as well, combined with whatever other filters you may already have.

When I saw the interceptor it reminded me a lot to this much older project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkQbcrzyAeE

Sounds plausible but of course there are lots of details to be worked out including how to recover the magnetite and how much it costs

But it's from September 2019. Does anyone know if anything has happened with the idea in the last 18 months.

> how to recover the magnetite

Won't that happen with the same magnet?

Presumably the magnetite is very finely divided and intimately connected to the material it is removing from the water; to reuse it surely one must detach the magnetic material from the plastic. It is not obvious to me that this is easy to do with high effectiveness. Presumably we do not want finely divided magnetic material to escape into the environment or for it to be included in the recovered plastic.

There are many methods that remove plastics from water in a petri dish or a glass. Translating those methods to ocean scale is the toughest part.

Awesome, I remember have read about this. But how is going the project today?

Googling his name brings up his website. Not sure it is being deployed yet. Would be nice to hear from experts in the field if this method has garnered any interest.

https://www.fionnferreira.com/about

This sounds like something that could be applied during pumping already (sewage treatment).

Seems like a clever solution but not sure how scalable it is for cleaning the ocean.

Cleaning the water would require pumping it which has to be super expensive. Maybe a such a filter at the end of residential waste pipes might be an appropriate application.

It wouldn't work at scale in the oceans; I don't think it discriminates between microplastics and microorganisms.

It'd work on a smaller scale though, but then it would have to compete with traditional filters.

The application of it is not intended to clean the ocean. As you say, you're supposed to put it in the (washing machine, dishwasher, waste etc.) before it gets to the ocean.

With those there is soap or other such agents involved. I wonder if they will unbind the oils from the ferrous material or prevent the plastics from attaching.

Or just a coarse metal catcher in front of the estuaries of the most polluted rivers

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluti...

They mean to say "90% of the plastic in the ocean that comes from rivers comes from just 10 rivers".

https://factcheck.afp.com/widely-cited-study-did-not-show-95...

"It estimated that 88 to 95 percent of the plastic transported by 1,350 large rivers around the world — referred to by scientists as riverine waste — comes from only 10 rivers, all of which are in Asia and Africa. The study does not attempt to compare the plastic waste transported by rivers to the total plastic waste in seas and oceans."

There's a bunch of plastic in the ocean that didn't come from rivers - mostly industrial fishing waste.

That "once again, Canada is not the problem" line in the viral post is missing the point so, so badly.

Like, yeah, lots of industrial waste comes from developing countries where the major production centers are, mostly in Asia. But the people sharing that image should ask themselves where those products go after they're made. A huge amount of that production is for the richer Western countries, and that does make it your responsibility if you live there.

This is how industrialized countries lower their CO2 output as well: just outsource it other countries. Under the Paris Agreement, countries are only held responsible for emissions that occur within its borders. It's just another way for the greatest consumers to be able to shrug and say "not our fault".

TLDR: a non-polar, non-toxic, ferromagnetic agent is added to the contaminated water. Plastic particles then attach to the agent due to their non-polar nature. The ferromagnetic agent with absorbed micro plastics subsequently can be removed by a magnet. The process removes >90% of micro plastics.

[Updated for clarity]

What is the cost of such agent and is the agent in itself toxic would be my first questions ...

It's vegetable oil mixed with iron oxide (magnetite), so I'd expect indigestion if you consume it in large quantities. Other than that it's probably harmless.

I wonder if the agent is reusable or whether you end up with clean water and waste-oil which you need to dispose of.

How come a magnet attracts plastic particles?

To answer my own question. It's vegetable oil mixed with magnetic powder. It's the oil that attracts plastic, but it's the magnetic powder that let's you collect it with a magnet.

As I understand it, he 'glues' metal to the plastic. The magnet picks up the metal, and the glued-on plastic comes along for the ride.

Now anyone with basic chemical knowledge will probably shoot me for abusing the word glued like this, so feel free to correct.

Ah that’s great news the micro plastics in the ocean problem is solved.

All it took was a plucky teenager to solve it, too!

This deserves a nomination to the Forbes “top 30 under 30” list!?!?

I think they're talking sewage plants and such, not oceans.

Brilliant, great work by Ferreira.

While working out a scalable solution, this would be a great addition to preexisting sewage infrastructure in the US!

Does anyone else approach these "teen invents x" or "wiz kid middle schooler discovers y" articles with extreme skepticism? About half the time the invention turns out to be bogus or trivial, and in the other half it comes to light the parents were behind it.

Yes.

My partner is working on a sub-topic, removing microplastics from laundry discharge water, and it is a huge and still undefined challenge. There is no magic pill.

Even core definitions such as "what are microplastics" are under review and development. And then there's nanoplastics.

For those wanting an introduction to the topic, don't go with media, start reviewing papers. The top cited papers clearly outline how all-encompassing and complex the challenge is.

>removing microplastics from laundry discharge water

Much better way of addressing a lot of the microplastics problem IMHO. Regulate it out of common frivolous sources like e.g. "exfoliating microspheres" and then start requiring washing machine OEMs to put replaceable filters on the discharge.

Agree on both counts.

It's really inspiring to see what real engineering is. Makes me feel like a sell-out massaging Skinner boxes.

In the laundry problem they are dealing with both the extreme challenge of physical objects (connecting the right pump to the right controller, battling liquid pressure loss, unreliable reference washing machine performance and water quality ), abstract concepts ("what shall be identified as microplastics?" "is the reference wash cycle in any way relevant to how plastic clothing sheds when worn by humans?" "how shall the conflicting measurement methods from literature be addressed / unified?") and project constraints. To say nothing about filter clogging.

And it's a great feeling to know that your work is fundamentally relevant, i see that even when they hit their lows.

Really making me re-consider my career path.

> Regulate it out of common frivolous sources like e.g. "exfoliating microspheres"

Already done in the UK and US.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/skin/the-best-face-and-bo...

It's far from done, and some would say not done at all, depending on the definition of microplastic. Microplastic in cosmetics is absolutely not even close to solved.

https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/2020/03/battle-on-t...

Laundromat-type commercial/industrial waste or residential laundry water?

I would think products for industrial, commercial, and residential micro plastics removal would be more useful than for a specific problem, but also that waste treatment plants and water runoff must scrub their outputs of environmental contaminants before discharging them into waterways.

This sort of comment crops up every time an article like this comes on HN. No doubt often times parents bring their kids along for the ride but no one bats and eye when we talk about our youth and learning to program as a 14 year old or something, why be surprised an 18 year old has come up with such an idea based on basic chemistry?

Because the issues kids in these articles claim to solve are usually large unsolved problems, that have been studied by subject matter experts for years. It's possible someone could dream up a silver bullet, but I believe the trope of an untrained outsider approaching a problem and easily solving something that has stumped "the experts" is nowhere near as common as we'd like to believe. The reality is these solutions take years of persistent hard work and background knowledge, and rarely materialise all at once. But that doesn't make a feel-good headline.

That's fine for the typical case, it's not like "teens with fresh ideas" solve all the problems, that's why this is news worthy because it is an exception. I'm not sure this story (the article in question seems like a blog of some sort so their writing might not be the best) is trying to pass off the idea that it's common at all.

I think the red flag is in the combination of "teen" and "<feel-good-subject>".

It's just a very typical clickbait pattern.

"Teen builds online brokerage platform" or "Teen builds bike that goes 100mph" does not cause the same negative anticipation.

Because when we were teens and younger programming, we were just covering well-known ground, learning to program and messing about. Some useful stuff maybe, but not furthering Computer Science with ground-breaking research. No different to playing an instrument as a child for example.

The doubt isn't over whether a teen can do 'basic chemistry', it's whether they've 'invented' something; whether they've done anything that someone who doesn't know them/their family/their school and isn't considering their application for something needs to care about. It's whether this is (or was a while before the media got it) news or exciting or a citation for an adult researcher working in the field.

>when we talk about our youth and learning to program as a 14 year old or something

what 14? That's late indeed. The story has to be preschool to be awe-worthy.

For instance: "12/13y old writes the shortest assembly routine to move the head of the floppy drive of Apple II", doesn't sound grounbreaking - even if the code was better/shorter than DOS, itself. Solving massive world problems is a totally different scale.

Even if it's not a bogus, they are rarely practical. Just like when adult hobbyists invent these things and they work, the engineering constraints of cost and scalability or negative side effects usually kill the project.

In this example, how much vegetable oils and magnetite powder you need per cubic meter of water?

Also how big magnets are we talking about here? And what scale of flow they can operate at with sufficient efficiency? Also what if there is lot of surfactants(soap etc.) involved in water?

So there I was, kayaking in an oil spill

Immediate red flag.

The most annoying part is that it usually comes with a patronizing "the youth knows better than the rest of us old fart sinners" message. I'm all for empowering the youth and don't deny their potential to build and create amazing things but these clickbaity articles ain't it.

It usually is. You can usually find some research or news about same tech used.

from 2013 article [1], though it seems not practical [2]:

"W2Plastics has shown the viability of magnetic density separation, where flakes of shredded plastic such as polyethylene or polypropylene are mixed into a magnetic fluid made by adding iron oxide to water."

I am not sure which one is better to show kids they discovered something existing, or praise them like this

[1] https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/magnetic-attraction-recy...

[2] https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/131208-sorting-plastic-w...

This might be a stretch, but it always reminds me of Craig Ferguson’s rant on ‘The deification of youth’:

https://youtu.be/UKUZ42T9diU

Edit: (*Scottish!): Ironically, he’s an old Irish man :p

Craig Ferguson is not Irish.

Oh man, I thought they were all the same up there.

Scottish.

Yes. They tend to be straight out of the “monkey lands plane” school of journalism.

Hahaha "monkey lands plane" reminded me of the ad with the monkey being the taxi driver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdXbf12AzIM

(not affilated with pepsi, I do not consume sugar-y soft drinks)

"Hey, look everyone, a toddler invented commercial fusion power when actual physicists and engineers couldn't!"

It sells ads to eyeballs is all the so-called journalists and editors care about.

Almost as reliable as "scientist discovers X" in mainstream media since they constantly misinterpret or exagerate the nature of discoveries.

I used to, but after seeing the Collison brothers achievements I will click on any headline starting with "Irish Teen Invents...".

I approach everything with scepticism.

Yes, but then again the majority of news is somewhere between lies and not even wrong.

The point of news is eyeballs, not truth.

No, there exist reasonably good news sources.

Yes, a tiny minority.

The majority are so bad that they have reduced their consumers ability to read to the point where they can't understand the difference between few and none.

(2019)

Or even (2018), since that's when the guy actually came up with it. It was widely reported several times. He's become a regular on the conference circuit since then, but as far as I can see his "great invention" has not actually been deployed in any significant capacity. I'd like it if anybody could shine some light on the outcomes.

Did other things with his life

My teenage life had similar projects and conferences

Got a ride into college and never thought about that again

Decided to Google it. He moved on to a new project which is a platform to help other young inventors [0]. He went meta.

To be fair, any misalignment between what he has done and how it was presented in the press I blame 100% the press.

He did something cool, in line of what’s the Google Science prize is all about (I.e. promoting science research among teenagers, not finding world-changing inventions). The press that went nuts pointing ”this teenager just solved ocean pollution for us!” due to the known incentives that ad-based press have.

[0] https://www.southernstar.ie/news/hollywood-celeb-is-funding-...

Yep, so a `(2019)` in the title is required.

We just have to be careful so that "the cure doesn't become deadlier than the disease": in case some magnetic particles are left in it could cause greater issues perhaps than plastic. We can't just assume that "yeah don't worry bro the magnets will surely remove all magnetic particles".

The magnetic particles are iron oxide, it's fairly common in nature. Adding too much of it to water will turn it brown and cause issues, but small quantities shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

Excess iron in seawater can cause huge imbalalances by seeding algae blooms. Any large scale application of this would need to take that into account or risk disrupting ecosystems.

It is actually a fertilizer, algae needs it (of course, too much algae is a problem, too).

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