{"id":9361,"date":"2024-11-08T18:25:31","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T21:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solvefortomorrowlatam.com\/pratica\/estudantes-planta-remocao-agrotoxicos\/"},"modified":"2024-12-16T11:58:39","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T14:58:39","slug":"estudantes-planta-remocao-agrotoxicos","status":"publish","type":"pratica","link":"https:\/\/solvefortomorrowlatam.com\/en\/case\/estudantes-planta-remocao-agrotoxicos\/","title":{"rendered":"Students filter pesticides from water using vegetable charcoal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The coffee economy is so present in the municipality of Franca, in southeastern Brazil, that it motivated the creation of a discipline dedicated to deepening knowledge about this production chain. Called \u201cWould you like some coffee?\u201d, the subject was the starting point for three students to have the idea of a solution to \u200b\u200bremove pesticides from coffee plantations using another fruit: the maca\u00faba<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project, \u201cMacafiltro: uso da maca\u00faba para remo\u00e7\u00e3o de agrot\u00f3xicos de \u00e1gua contaminada\u201d (In English, Macafiltro: using maca\u00faba to remove pesticides from contaminated water<\/em>) was a finalist in Solve for Tomorrow Brazil in 2022. Initially, the team researched the possible negative impacts of coffee plantations and, together with mediator teachers<\/a> Henrique Pereira and Camila Nunes, discovered that pesticides can contaminate water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main chemical identified by the team was glyphosate, used to kill weeds that grow alongside coffee. This can cause health problems such as cognitive impairment and cancer. \u201cThis pesticide is sprayed on crops and from there, it can infiltrate the soil and fall into the water table or run off the surface and end up in rivers. Since this water is piped by the residents themselves to supply their homes, the idea came up of making a filter that could be attached to the pipes before the chemical reaches the water tank,\u201d explains Pereira, who is a Biology teacher and coordinator of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To build this filter, the team decided to produce vegetable charcoal. As a raw material, they used the fruit of a palm tree called maca\u00faba<\/em>, also known as coco-baboso<\/em>, coco-de-espinho<\/em>, or maca\u00faba<\/em>. The species is so abundant in the rural area of \u200b\u200bFranca that the seeds often spoil on the ground. In this way, the project would solve two problems in a single prototype: water contamination and maca\u00faba waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team did not set out to produce activated carbon, normally used for filtering, because it would require chemical and industrial processes beyond the student\u00b4s possibilities. Therefore, the goal was to produce charcoal from the endocarp of the maca\u00faba<\/em> tree – that is, the rigid part that protects the fruit\u2019s seed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first stage of the prototype was to develop a method to extract the part of the fruit to burn it and to turn it into charcoal. \u201cFirst, we broke the maca\u00faba<\/em> coconut with a hammer to remove the endocarp. After much effort, we discovered that, on the ground in the pastures, the pulp of this fruit degraded quickly and only the endocarp was left,\u201d recalls the teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n