Project Objective
The initial driving question was "How can we use Chemistry to support the chemical treatment of wastewater and various clean water initiatives?" Emphasizing the second half of the driving question, our team explored the usage and transformation of water through research. Our team decided to explore the efficiency of water in space; more specifically, we tried to find solutions for a sustainable food system for future space missions to cut on payload costs, while improving psychological health by utilizing water and aeroponics.
Key Terms and Concepts
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Solutions
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Acids and Bases
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Additional Concepts
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Solution: Homogeneous mixtures of two or more substances in a single phase.
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Acids: With metals, it reacts to form H2, and with bases it forms water and a salt. It can conduct an electrical current.
Bases: React with acids to form salt and water, and can conduct and electrical current. pH scale: A 14-0 scale that determines how acidic or how basic a solution is, with a pH of 7 as neutral, pH < 7 is acidic, as pH > 7 is basic, such that pH +pOH =14. pH = -log[H3O+] , the concentration of H+. pOH scale: A 0-14 scale that determines how acidic or how basic a solution is, with a pH of 7 as neutral, pH > 7 is acidic, as pH < 7 is basic. pH = -log[OH-] , the concentration of OH-. Acid-Base Theories:
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Water Properties
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Cultivation Techniques
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Filtration
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Chemical Processes
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Physics
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Aeropoincs: Plants are suspended in air, while nutrient solution is delivered as a fine mist.
Hydroponics: Plants are grown in sand, gravel, or liquid, with nutrients, and without soil. Aquaponics: Plants are grown by taking advantage of the plant-fish ecosystem, where wasted produced by farmed fish supplies nutrients for hydroponically grown plants, purifying the water. Vertical Farming: plant growth in either vertically stacked layers or inclined surfaces for horizontal plant-space efficiency. |
Water Filtration Methods:
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Calcination: A purification process by heating solids, in this case clay, to high temperatures to remove volatile substances, and to oxidize parts of the solid, which can be used to aerate the clay.
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Jurin's Law: deals describes capillary action, where for the force that pushes liquids, the height of the liquid is inversely proportional to its radius, density, and gravity, while being proportional to its contact angle and liquid surface tension. This law was used to understand how water would behave in a microgravity environment.
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Presentation
Research
Reflection
With this project, I think it's safe to assume that the universal difficulty among most groups was time management. With standardized testing, APs, coupled with departmental and club trips, it was a challenge to ensure productivity among our teammates in order to get work done. Even under these circumstances, I was proud of our team's ability to collaborate and to adapt under the new testing environment, making progress in the research and presentation. But there were some inefficiencies we could have addressed to better our project. Initially, we decided to 3-D print the model aeroponic system in order to have an interactive element for our presentation, but we ended up neglecting the idea. It was too time-consuming to print, and we didn't think too much of it. By focusing on this, we were wasting time that could be spent on research and presentation. This could be circumvented in the future with some critical thinking about our priorities, or accommodation of other ideas, with some foresight. Understanding the situation we were in allowed each of us to become responsible for individual strides in research, aiding group progress towards the project's completion. To ensure our progress, I made sure that we kept refining the focus of our abstract response to the driving question by communicating with the rest of our team members to get a consensus on what we wanted to present, and whether we could present it under our work constraints. By understanding our time constraints, we were able to execute our ambitions, in a more than timely manner, by presenting our work a week in advance.
- Nihal Nazeem.
- Nihal Nazeem.