Efficacy of Algae Phytoremediation vs Sand Filtration of Bisphenol-a Solution

For as long as I can remember, scientific discovery and the joy of learning has been an integral part of my life. As the second youngest in a family of 9 siblings, I was exposed to everything my older brothers and sisters were learning about in their upper level high school and college courses, and family dinner discussions were often centered around whatever my father had read about in Discover or Scientific American that day during his work breaks. The result was that the critical role that the scientific process has played and will continue to play in the saga of human history was never lost on me. With this in mind, my career aspiration as a 5-year-old was to be an astronaut…that was simultaneously a ballerina, a crayon artist, and a chef.

Fourteen years later, I am glad to say I am much more of a realist than I was as a five-year old. In elementary and middle school, I thought I would major in Biology like the rest of my siblings and become a doctor or a dentist. However, I always felt drawn to experimentation, to discovery - to those eureka or lightbulb moments. I didn’t have an outlet for this tendency until high school when I began taking a science capstone class with my chemistry teacher turned mentor, Jennifer Jones. It was for my third year-long research project, my senior year of high school, that I earned one of seven top prizes at my state science fair and thus earned a ticket to AJAS.

I think it is safe to say many scientists have a "passion," a subject or field of study that really just lights their fire. For me, that passion is water. I believe water is the Earth's most precious resource, and it pains me to see how many people take it for granted. Previously, I had been conducting research related to ethanol production, but this time around I wanted to switch gears and pursue a water quality project.

Trying to come up with ideas, I decided to visit my local wastewater treatment plant and noticed large swaths of algae growing in the water storage tanks. The technicians explained that these were naturally occurring growths that actually helped to filter out excess nutrients such as nitrogen or fertilizer. This observation, in conjunction with learning about the concept of phytoremediation from the World of Engineering Twitter page, lead to my lightbulb moment. "What else can algae do?"

Winter came and I started my experiment. I'm from a very rural school and was operating on a budget of about $200 dollars from the very shallow "Gifted Students" fund, so I made plans to use the University of Nebraska-Kearney's mass spectrometer to analyze my data when the time came. Two weeks before the deadline to my regional fair, I drove the two hour trip to Kearney with my samples.

The mass spectrometer I was relying on to get my data decided it was going to malfunction that day.

Panicking, I made frantic phone calls all over the state to both public and private environmental agencies, trying to find someday to help me analyze my data. I repeatedly was met with either scorn or price tags in the thousands of dollars. Finally, I made a last ditch effort and called Applied Technical Sciences in Georgia at the suggestion of an employee from the UNL Water Center. The employee who picked up gave me the manager's phone number. I called, he didn't answer, so I left a message explaining my situation and trying my best to sound professional.

He called back within the hour.

"Hi Miah. I'm really impressed with your maturity and willingness to do whatever it takes to get your data. While what you're asking for would normally cost about $400,000, I'm going to process your samples for you for the shipping and handling fee of $40. Anything to help a budding scientist!"

In other words, Justin from Applied Technical Sciences saved my project.

I got my data.

And here I am.