Science Education News (SEN) Journal 2017 Volume 66 Number 4 December 2017 | Page 21

ASSOCIATION NEWS
2017 Young Scientist Awards (continued)
Our 2017 winners of this award are our previous two ‘Young
Scientist of the Year’ winners who teamed together to produce
this year’s top project – all completed between their return from
ISEF in mid-May and the Y.S. August deadline. Their award was
presented by Trevor Vyner, Sebel CEO.
Remaining 2018 Intel ISEF Finalists
The full team for ISEF 2018 in Pittsburg, U.S.A.
Aniruddh Chennapragada, James Ruse Agricultural High
School, ‘Investigating the Carbonisation and Activation of
Banana Peels for Applications in Batteries’.
Jade and Macinley developed a self-sustaining sanitation and
sterilising device to produce potable and medical grade sterile
water for developing countries and emergency relief. Their
project, ‘The SAS System’ (Sanitation and Sterilisation System),
is a self-sustaining, portable unit consisting of three integrated
systems, to provide both clean drinking water and sterile water
for medical use, for developing communities and emergency
relief.
Aniruddh successfully prepared activated carbon from banana
peel. His project then progressed onto characterising the
synthesised activated carbon using FT-IR (Fourier-transform
infrared) spectroscopy and SEM (Scanning Electronic
Microscopy). Finally he used his activated banana peels as
cathodic material in an aluminium-air battery showing that there
is great potential for utilising organic waste like banana peels for
preparing chemically activated materials that have applications
in energy technology.
2018 Intel ISEF Prize
A total of seven winning projects were selected from Years 9-12.
The winning students will travel to Pittsburgh, USA, to represent
Australia at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair
(ISEF) in May 2018.
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 66 NO 4