Her analysis, published in 2021, looks at the activated carbon produced by various methods-from charring stover in an industrial furnace to dousing it in caustic substances-and the molecular properties that affect which contaminants it can soak up. A small percentage does get salvaged and converted into biofuels, but the payoff usually isn’t worth the effort.Ībdul-Aziz and her colleagues set out to test multiple processes for turning the refuse into activated carbon, the charcoal-like substance that’s used as a filter everywhere from smokestacks to your home Brita pitcher. Much of it is left to rot on the ground, releasing methane and other greenhouse gases. The stalks, leaves, tassels, and husks left over from harvest add up to America’s most copious agricultural waste product. To start, Abdul-Aziz decided to investigate whether she could convert corn stover into something with economic value. “Literally, if you looked out past the plant,” she says, “you could see houses close by.” She was also tasked with testing the refinery’s wastewater-which, she couldn’t help but notice, flowed out right next to a residential neighborhood. Part of her job was to analyze refined petroleum products, like acetone and phenol, that other industrial manufacturers might buy. Turning food waste into filters Kandis Leslie Abdul-Aziz: Assistant Professor, Chemical and Environmental Engineering University of California, Riverside University of California, RiversideĪfter earning a bachelor’s in chemistry in 2007, Kandis Leslie Abdul-Aziz took a position at an oil refinery along the Schuykill River in South Philadelphia. Daniel Larremore: Crunching the numbers to get ahead of outbreaks.Aaron Streets: Mapping every human cell.Chantell Evans: Finding the roots of neurodegenerative disease.Samitha Samaranayake: Making transit sustainable and equitable.Daniella Mendoza DellaGiustina: Spying our future in near-asteroid flybys.John Blazeck: Building an immune system from scratch.Rachael Bay: Predicting how wildlife will adapt to climate change.Mohammad Hajiesmaili: Decarbonizing the internet.Sangeetha Reddy: Harnessing the power of immunotherapy for breast cancer.Kandis Leslie Abdul-Aziz: Turning food waste into filters.The collective work of this year’s class sets the stage for a healthier, safer, more efficient, and more equitable future-one that’s already taking shape today. To find the brightest innovators of today, we embarked on a nationwide search, vetting hundreds of researchers across a range of institutions and disciplines. There’s a phrase that rings loudly in the heads of Popular Science editors any time we bring together a new Brilliant 10 class: “They’ve only just begun.” Our annual list of early-career scientists and engineers is as much a celebration of what our honorees have already accomplished as it is a forecast for what they’ll do next.
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