Name: 【TED】Deepika Kurup: A young scientist's quest for clean water (A young scientist's quest for clean water | Deepika Kurup)
Uploaded: 2017-04-18T01:45:01.000Z
Duration: 8 min
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Every summer, my family and I travel across the world,

Adverbs of manner

to the culturally diverse country of India.

Now, India is a country infamous for its scorching heat and humidity.

For me, the only relief from this heat is to drink plenty of water.

my parents always remind me to only drink boiled or bottled water,

where I can just turn on a tap and easily get clean, potable water,

in India, the water is often contaminated.

Outside my grandparents' house in the busy streets of India,

with dirty water from streams on the roadside.

I wanted to know why these kids lacked water,

as 75 percent of our planet is covered in water,

but only 2.5 percent of that is freshwater,

and less than one percent of Earth's freshwater supply

industrial development and economic growth,

our demand for clean water is increasing,

yet our freshwater resources are rapidly depleting.

According to the World Health Organization,

Lack of access to clean water is a leading cause of death

in children under the age of five in developing countries,

die every day from a water-related disease.

So after returning home one summer in eighth grade,

I decided that I wanted to combine my passion

would be to convert my garage into a laboratory.

Actually, at first I converted my kitchen into a laboratory,

but my parents didn't really approve and kicked me out.

I also read a lot of journal papers on water-related research,

and I learned that currently in developing countries,

In SODIS, clear plastic bottles are filled with contaminated water

and then exposed to sunlight for six to eight hours.

destroys the DNA of these harmful pathogens

Now, while SODIS is really easy to use and energy-efficient,

as it can take up to two days when it's cloudy.

So in order to make the SODIS process faster,

and a catalyst is something that speeds up a reaction.

is it's just speeding up this solar disinfection process.

When sunlight comes in and strikes a photocatalyst,

it creates these really reactive oxygen species,

like superoxides, hydrogen peroxide and hydroxyl radicals.

and a whole lot of contaminants from drinking water.

But unfortunately, there are several disadvantages

to the way photocatalytic SODIS is currently deployed.

See, what they do is they take the clear plastic bottles

and they coat the inside with this photocatalytic coating.

So when they're coated on the inside of these bottles,

they're actually blocking some of the UV radiation

and diminishing the efficiency of the process.

are not tightly bound to the plastic bottle,

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED】Deepika Kurup: A young scientist's quest for clean water (A young scientist's quest for clean water | Deepika Kurup)

process

applause

access

crisis