How could we have thought so wrongly of a banana peel that it always hits the garbage? Utility of anything seems to be in the eyes of the beholder. The banana peel hasn’t been an exception.
What most of us looked at as waste was converted to a thing of utility by Prithwis Mukhopadhyay, a 14 year old prodigy. This Bengali boy, nourished in the US, Lake Junior High in Woodbury, Minnesota, has come up with an idea to convert banana peels to biogas.
Its well known that almost any organic waste can be converted to biogas. But why biogas from banana peel has hit the news is because, it produced five times as much biogas as manure, a commonly used source for producing biogas, in the experiments Prithwis conducted.
He filled two airtight containers, one with manure and another with banana peels, mixed each content with water and connected them to empty jars via pipes to collect the gas produced. He placed a heater fan 1t 80° Celsius Fahrenheit next to each jar and measured the gas collected for 60 days. His studies proved that banana peels produced five times more biogas than manure.
This project titled ‘Comparison analysis: Eco-friendly source of energy for the future,’ earned him a spot in Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge. This weekend, the young whiz is to showcase his research work along with 40 other finalists at Washington. “Initially, I thought of doing a project that would reduce global warming. Things changed after I visited a biogas plant in a village in India during my summer vacations. It was an amazing experience,” Prithwis says.
The young teenager exhibits his prowess not only in science but in mathematics also, having enrolled in the University of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematicians Programme. “By enrolling in this, I am exempt from doing maths in school,” he says. Given the boy’s achievements and attitude, his father Partha Mukhopadhyay, a senior manager at BearingPoint, and mother Munmun, a manager at Wells Fargo, have notably been an inspiration.
That’s not it from this kid. Prithwis is now the youngest voluntary researcher at the Jesse Brown Veterans Administration Medical Centre of Chicago. In Chicago, he helps his father’s friend Dr Sumit Bhattacharyya do research on an enzyme that might aid cystic fibrosis patients. Great going there. I am sure we would hear more of this kid in the future.
via : Timesofindia
