Driven by the plastic debris observed in school garden and during mountain-cleanup activities, I joined Prof. Xuan Zhang's lab in Zhejiang University trying to explore solutions to mitigate plastic pollution issue. Prof. Xuan Zhang's lab focuses on MOF adsorbent materials. After learning this materials' properties and reviewing literature I found PET(a specific type of plastic) could be used as a raw material to synthesize MOF - which could be a very promising upcylcing strategy for plastic wastes.

 

So I purchased PET plastic bottles and fabrics online, preparing simulated steel pickling wastewater to provide essential metal ions for synthesis. Based on existing literature, I proposed an experimental plan to compare the synthesis of MOF adsorbent material under diff. temperature and duration using plastic bottles and polyester fabric through characterization, and testing the MOF's pollutant removal efficiency using organic dye solutions.

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Originally, I hypothesized that this upcycling strategy must be very efficient - because according to my research, MOF typically has a very high pollutant adsorption rate. Although my research show that the pollutant removal of synthesized MOF is truly high, and based on characterization, synthesized MOF displayed a 3-D cage molecular structure with a high total surface area. However, I found only under temperature over about 200 celsius degrees, significant amount of MOF powder could be produced and successfully obtained through centrifugation, which means this strategy was still not practical in real-world industries - because high energy cost during processing would occur. To overcome this, more efficient catalysts would be required.

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Actually, when I started the research I fantasized about proposing this finding to some local businesses, but due to the constraints of high reaction energy costs, I found this unpractical. That exploration led me to understand: to tackle environmental issues, sometimes engineering and lab-work alone might not be enough - economic aspects are also highly important. And I also found myself more interested in analyzing pollution in the first hand rather than directly jumping into engineering solutions. Also, when presenting this in Genius Olympiad, I found that I did not effectively analyze my data such as by employing statistical tools to show the significance, which I improved during my second soil pollution research.

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I would not say this research turned out to be very successful, providing world-changing plastic mitigation strategy. But it taught me a lot of analytical chemistry skills while I worked with Prof. Xuan Zhang's lab team - and here I also found a sense of belonging. So later in my soil research I contacted him again for entering the lab conducting analytical chemistry experiments on soil health. Although I encountered obstacles, but I'm also open to explore more mitigation strategies in college to restore land health.