Teenager Uses What He Learned in Chemistry Class to Remove Microplastics from Oceans

18-year-old Irish Fionn Ferreira has invented a magnetic liquid trap that is able to affordably remove 90% of microplastics from the ocean – all thanks to an oil spill he spotted on a rock when he was kayaking that reminded him of a chemistry lesson.

“It got me thinking,” says Ferreira to Business Insider, when recalling the tiny pieces of plastic clinging to the oil. “In chemistry, like attracts like.”

Microplastics can share the size of grains of sand, giving scientists a hard time to figure out how to remove them from the soil and sea. But given that plastic and oil are nonpolar, they are likely to stick together in nature. So Ferreira thought to create an eco-friendly version of ferrofluid – a magnetic, oil-based liquid – using recycled vegetable oil and magnetite powder, a natural mineral found on the Earth’s surface. His genius invention earned him the Google Science award worth $50,000 as well as educational funding.