Last week in Moscow there was an awarding ceremony of Russian Youth Water Competition 2020.  

Students and schoolchildren  prepared research and technical projects in field of water safe, water sources recovery and sustainable water management. There were presented 80 projects from 76 Russian regions.

The main award of the competition was won by Mikhail Nikonorov, 17 y.o. from the Samara region with a project focused on fighting  microplastics. The project presents a method for cleaning waste water by 80-85% from plastic microparticles using an adsorption-magnetic installation and a ferromagnetic liquid. In the course of the study, a design was developed that can be integrated into the drainage system. 

Other relevant projects on plastic and microplastic in water were:

“Microplastics: invisible problem and ways to solve it” made by Sergey Federov, 17 y.o. (Pskov region). The goal of the project is to test one of the simplified variations of the method of sampling and analyzing water samples from reservoirs in the district for the content of microplastics, as well as to provide recommendations on its use for public monitoring in reservoirs and cosmetics.

“Methods for determining sediment deposition on microplastics and macroalgae” made by Anna Tomchuk, 17 y.o. (Sevastopol). Methods have been developed to assess the intensity of deposition of suspended matter in water on microplastic and macroalgae elements. The proposed method is universal, simulates deposition processes on substrates of different nature circumstances.