Young scientists: SMA 1 Surakarta state high school students Luca Cada Lora (left) and Galih Ramadhan demonstrate on Wednesday filters that they invented
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Two students from SMA 1 state senior high school in Surakarta , Central Java, Luca Cada Lora and Galih Ramadhan, both 18, won the fourth grand prize in the material science category at the 2015 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the US, from May 10 to 12.
Participants from 73 countries competed in the world-class science and technology competition.
Before taking part in the competition in the US, Luka and Galih both won the Youth Scientific Competition organized by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). The victory allowed them to represent Indonesia in the international event with their innovation ' the Packed VolcASH ' a contraption that uses volcanic ash to filter waste-water.
According to Luca, the discovery came about after the eruption of Mount Kelud in February, 2014. Then, Surakarta city and its surroundings were blanked with thick volcanic ash.
'Then, many drains were covered by ash. We saw that the water in the drains filled with volcanic ash appeared clearer. The idea of the filtering device came from the mound of volcanic ash we saw in the gutters,' Luca said.
Luca and Galih then conducted research on the characteristics of the volcanic ash. After a few months, they found out volcanic ash was able to bind pollutants in water, especially heavy metal pollutants.
According to Luca, pores on the surface of volcanic ash will bind pollutants in water and clear the water of metal contents below the threshold.
'We conducted activation so that the volcanic ash could absorb metal compounds more effectively. It was the most difficult step. The activation process cleans the pores on the surface of the ash so they get bigger. After activation, we conducted the absorption process. Heavy metals in waste-water will later stick to the volcanic ash and the water becomes clearer,' said Luca.
Galih said the filtering device was simple. He said waste-water was placed in a container filled with volcanic ash, which absorbed the heavy metals and filtered the water through different holes.
'The types of waste that can be filtered by the device are industrial waste mixed with synthetic dyes and metal-plating waste,' Galih said.
He added that Surakarta was equipped with waste-water processing industries (IPAL), but only for large-scale industries, while household industries normally dumped their waste into rivers.
'The device only uses about 1.2 kilograms of volcanic ash, but is able to process around 86 liters of waste-water,' Galih said.
Separately, SMA 1 principal Toyyibun said before going to the US, the students had outshined hundreds of participants from various regions.
'The science and technology competition is held annually in the US and material science is one of the competition categories,' said Toyyibun.
He added that Indonesia ranked fourth in the material science category. 'The overall champion was Canada, followed by the US, Japan and Germany,' said Toyyibun.
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