Ga'rabé ba'wí| Trash Cleanup

Project Details

Awards & Nominations

Ga'rabé ba'wí has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

The Challenge | Trash Cleanup

Oceanic garbage patches are collections of marine debris that come together due to ocean currents; they have devastating effects on ocean ecosystems. Your challenge is to design a mission to help clean up garbage from the ocean!

Aspergillus plastikillus

It's a system that treats and controls ocean's plastic debris. We want to eliminate the microplastics where they have higher accumulation in the ocean. The system is composed by aqua-drones, which test the most of the spotlight zone and deliver a fungus.

Ga'rabé ba'wí

1 - What is Aspergillus plastikillus?

It's a system that treats and controls ocean's plastic debris, giving protection to the whole food chain therefore so does it to the environment. We want to eliminate the microplastics where there' higher accumulation of them in the ocean. It fills 80% for the worldwide ocean's plastic (Brown et al., 2009). The system is composed by aqua-drones, which test the most of the spotlight zone and deliver a fungus strain that degrades polymers.

Components of the system are:

  • Aspergillus spp.
  • Mesh-satellite setwork.
  • Moil depot and Earth base.
  • AI “Patrix”.
  • PGA Controlle

    2 - Explaining the Solution

    2.1 Aspergillus spp.

    Due to the greatest skill of the filamentous fungus to degrade polymers, we made a lot of experiments at the Aspergillus spp. species, in order to measure its adhesion to the synthetic polymers also known as hydrophobicity grade, which is: 94.91± 0.41 (Hernández-Sánchez et al., 2019). The Aspergillus family is able to survive and reproduce itself in conditions near to 15% of salinity (Biango et al., 2017). In this way we have a lot of chances of delivering fungus into the sea with a big possibility of degrading a big mass of synthetic polymers in an order of two weeks, as we can see in results from (Hernández-Sánchez et al., 2019).

    Aspergillus spp

    Looking at both researches, we conclude that Aspergillus family is able to work in microplastics breakdown, by the way, pickin up the microplastics by a mechanic way, is very difficult. Therefore we came with the idea of putting this fungus into the areas of the ocean, with the most amounts of plastic, and we needed a way to do it, so part of the team have developed an aquatic drone, that is able to grow the fungus, take data on, and put the fungus into the ocean.


    3 - AI “PATRIX”

    The protocol that controls the developing of the project is an AI called “PATRIX”. It's main function is to map up a specific zone (selected by a human team) using the GPS and the sensor of the aqua drones that can measure the concentration of microplastics in a determinated water current using diffraction sensors. Then it designs an optimal course for the aqua drones, and make multiples measurements while and after the zone is cleaned. Then it moves the process to a different place when the drone detects that the current location is clean.


    4 - Rank the Operation

    The project has two different communication protocols, that’s why we need to make a two levels rank between the aqua-drones, the main one is called “The Mothership” and that’s the one that has inside; the “PATRIX” protocol, a satellite communication module (and a satellite dish), the structure enough to realize the fungus propagation and a hardware designed specifically for “PATRIX”, the second level is called “The Seeker” which has two objectives: to propagate the fungus and to measure the water conditions.


    5 - Components

    Block Diagram of the Aqua Drone

    5.1 FPGA

    The principal reason to use a FPGA controller it’s because the system needs to have a real time writing and reading of all the internal sections, whit the FPGA we could have a parallel reading, processing and writing of data and instructions.

    5.2 Communication (Mesh network & satellite protocol)

    The combination of two different kinds of communication allows the system to have a safe connection (between the aqua drones), transmit data, receive instructions or corrections of the human team that manages the mission.

    The mesh network works with multiple nodes that ensures a stable connection, and allows to detect a problem with the communication module of any of the aqua drones.

    Diagram of Communication

    5.3 Energy

    The minimum energy rating of the system need to be self-sustainable is close to 200 W (calculated approach), that’s why the aqua drones have solar panels recovered with a thin sheet of hybrid inorganic-organic perovskite, that increase the solar absorption of the solar panels to a 48%.

    All that energy will be saved in a Solid State Lithium Sulfur Battery with Ceramic Electrolytes, because it has some very attractive characteristics; can achieve almost 400 Wh/Kg, has a high resistance to mechanical damage, high resistance to electric damage and it gots a very strong chemical structure.

    5.4 Sensors

    We look at the USV Saildrone from (The Schmidt Family Foundation, Saildrone, and NASA Physical Oceanography, 2018) as an antecedent for a water drone that uses sensors. The sensors implemented to measure the external environment would be:

    • pH.
    • Temperature.
    • Salinity.
    • O2 Concentration.
    • CO2 Concentration (is derived from pH and O2 Concentration).
    • Concentration of microplastics by Refraction.

    The sensors used to measure the internal process:

    • Internal pH.
    • Internal Temperature.
    • Efficiency and level of charge.
    • State of the fungus colony.

    5.5 Motors and Navigation

    The global positioning system help to the AI “PATRIX” to make a map out of a specific zone preselected by the develop team (using both the NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio and the GRID-Arendal data), and the navigation of the aqua drone is controlled by a motor driver, that decrease the initial current peak.

    That driver will control two DC brushless motors, which are situated on opposite sites and that’s how the driver could direct to a correct position the aqua drone.


    6 - Structure

    SolidWorks Design

    6.1 Material

    The structure design is intended to be made of a Titanium-Aluminum composition metal, because it has a high resistance to the corrosion, and the Aluminum oxide has a molecular structure that’s encapsulate himself, and stop the corrosion effect.

    6.2 Components

    Inside the aqua drone is where the fungus colony will be cultivated, that works inside two same-size tanks that keeps safe the colony until they grow enough to do their work, and a valve arrangement controlling the inlet and outlet of water, that’s how the colony is collocated inside the ocean, the tanks have two different aged colonies, it’s reduces the time between every propagation, and keeps the fungus alive.


    Resources:

    • Masood, Mohsin ORCID logo, Fouad, Mohamed Mostafa, Seyedzadeh, Saleh and Glesk, Ivan. (2019). Energy efficient software defined networking algorithm for wireless sensor networks . 10/20/2019, from Strathclyde Prints. Web site: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/68154/
    • García-Tejero, Alejandro. (2016). Desarrollo de un frontal de radiofrecuencia (Front-end) para antenas inteligentes en la banda C para comunicaciones aire-aire entre vehículos aéreos no tripulados. 10/20/2019, from TFG. Web site: http://oa.upm.es/43263/1/PFC_ALEJANDRO_GARCIA_TEJE...
    • Mark A. Browne, Tamara Galloway, Richard Thompson . (October-2007). Microplastic—an emerging contaminant of potential concern?. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 3, 559-561. 20/Octuber/2019, From setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com database.
    • David E. Hernández-Sánchez, Ana G. VIllalba , José A. Saavedra. (October/06/2019). Evaluación de la hidrofobicidad de la superficie celular de hongos filamentosos. October/20/2019, from Universidad de Sonora. Web site: https://github.com/darkedy7/CNFLXII
    • Megan N. Biango-Daniels,Kathie Hodge.. (2018). Sea salts as a potential source of food spoilage fungi. Science Direct, 69, 89-95. 2019, from Science Direct database.
    • Portela Carlosena, Dafne. (2015). Síntesis y caracterización de materiales fotovoltaicos para paneles solares de bajo coste y alta eficiencia.. 10/20/2019, from UDC. Web site: https://ruc.udc.es/dspace/handle/2183/15233