US-born Lankan student builds water cleansing system

Attends Rio+20 Summit to display work:

US born Sri Lankan student Shayanth Sinnarajah, 18, attended the Rio+20 Summit to display a water cleansing system.

Shayanth Sinnarajah,

In minutes and with the amount of force it takes to pump air into a bike tyre, Sinnarajah can make 15 gallons of clean drinking water, referred to in some circles as "blue gold."

Sinnarajah and his colleagues pump the dirty, undrinkable water through a machine where it travels through four filters, each one progressively letting in fewer pollutants, until the water reaches a tank inside the 28-inch by 48-inch cart that contains the water-cleansing system called LiTReS.

Sinnarajah, 18, who will be a freshman at UC Berkeley in the fall, siphoned the pristine water into a glass and made a toast with his colleague and friend, Lucia Herrmann, also a recent Gulliver graduate, who is Yale University-bound.

The two are part of a team of 18 students at the Coral Gables school who created the water filtration device based on clean energy that could solve the water crisis in under-developed areas where safe drinking water is a luxury for millions.

On Sunday, Sinnarajah, Herrmann and engineering teacher and project coach Claude Charron were all in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to attend Rio+20 Summit.

The Gulliver students were invited to present their story of innovation at the US Department of State's centre on Sunday.

Courtesy: The Miami Herald