An Indian-American student has found a cheap method to turn salt water into drinkable freshwater. His work has caught the attention of major technology firms and universities.
Chaitanya Karamchedu from Portland, Oregon, is turning heads across the United States, all because of a science experiment that began in his high school classroom.
The Jesuit High School student told KPTV that he has big plans to change the world. “1 in 8 people do not have access to clean water, it’s a crying issue that needs to be addressed,” said Mr. Karamchedu. He made up his mind to address the matter himself.
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“The best access to water is the sea. 70% of the planet is covered in water and almost all of that is the ocean, but the problem is that’s salt water,” said Mr. Karamchedu.
Isolating drinkable water from the ocean in a cost effective way is a problem that has stumped scientists for years.
“Scientists looked at desalination, but it’s all still inaccessible to [some] places and it would cost too much to implement on a large scale,” Mr. Karamchedu said.
The teenager figured it out, on his own, in a high school lab.
“The real genesis of the idea was realising that sea water is not fully saturated with salt,” he was quoted as saying. By experimenting with a highly absorbent polymer, the teen hit upon a less expensive method to remove salt from seawater and turn it into fresh water.
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“It’s not bonding with water molecules, it’s bonding to the salt,” explained Mr. Karamchedu, who is called ‘Chai’ in school. “People have been looking at the problem from one view point, how do we break those bonds between salt and the water? Chai came in and thought about it from a completely different angle,” said Jesuit High School biology teacher Lara Shamieh.
“People were concentrated on that 10% of water that’s bonded to the salt in the sea and no one looked at the 90% that was free. Chai just looked at it and said if 10% is bonded and 90% is free, then why are we so focused on this 10%, let’s ignore it and focus on the 90,” Ms. Shamieh said.
It is a breakthrough that is estimated to impact millions of lives if ever implemented on a mass scale. “What this is compared to current techniques is that it’s cheap and accessible to everyone, everyone can use it,” said Ms. Shamieh.
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Scientists across the country are taking note. Mr. Karamchedu won a $10,000 award from the U.S. Agency for International Development at Intel’s International Science Fair and second place at MIT’s TechCon where he won more money to continue his research.
“They were very encouraging, they could see things into it that I couldn’t, because they’ve been working their whole lives on this,” said Mr. Karamchedu.
Karamchedu has also been named one of 300 semi-finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, one of the most prestigious competitions in the U.S. for high school seniors.