A TEAM of Malaysian students had initially come together to create a sustainable way to manage wastewater using microalgae.
In the process, however, they decided to use byproducts from the wastewater system to create bioplastic – thus cleaning water and creating something useful at the same time.
Universiti Teknologi Petronas doctor of philosophy (PhD) student Leong Wai Hong said algal oil was the main output of the team’s “integration of bioengineered microalgae into special magnetic driven microalgae biomass recovery technology (SMART) wastewater treatment system”.
“We thought of various other products that we could come up with such as biodiesel and food supplements,” said Leong, the first prize winner of the 2021 Young Scientists Network (YSN)-Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) Chrysalis Award Final Pitch.
To read more: The Star
