Ukrainian student Mykola Ivanchenko has won first place at the Genius Olympiad, a competition for high school environmental projects held annually at State University of New York at Oswego in the United States.
Ivanchenko, who graduated from a Kyiv school this year, who came up with an adsorbent that removes oil from water, received a $9,000 scholarship to pay for studies at Oswego. Apart from that, he won a place in the final of the final of the I-Fest International Science Competition, which will be held in Tunis on Jan. 6-14.
The competition in New York on June 12-17 gathered together 1,100 students from 71 countries in five categories: business, music and art, robotics, science, and writing.
Ivanchenko won a gold medal with a project called “The Production of an Adsorbent for Petroleum and Its Products in a Water Environment Based on Hydrophobic Perlite” in the science category, in which around 750 participants competed.
Ukrainian student Mykola Ivanchenko poses with his gold medal at Oswego State University of New York in the United States.
Ivanchenko designed a hydrophobic adsorbent that removes oil from water. If water is polluted with oil in an accident, the adsorbent causes oil particles to clump together so that that they can be mechanically removed from the surface. According to Ivanchenko, the adsorbent can collect seven times more fluid than its own weight.
According to the competition’s website, secondary school students contribute to the protection and improvement of the environment through basic science, arts, creative writing, engineering, design, and business development.
Apart from Ivanchenko, 17 other Ukrainian students with 12 projects made it to the final of the Genius Olympiad 2017.
