7th ISF

ENVI013 - Investigating the Use of Eggshells as an Antibacterial Agent and in the Removal of Heavy Metal Ions

Polluted water poses a major challenge to human health in the world. Contamination of drinking water by contaminants such as heavy metal ions and bacteria results in the water being unsafe for human consumption and use, bringing about death in the worst case. The lack of safe sources of drinking water is especially prevalent in developing countries, due to a lack of infrastructure and technologies, which are often costly to acquire, resulting in people in these countries using water which is unsafe for consumption. It is thus necessary to find a suitable way to filter unsafe drinking water. Furthermore, as the population of the world increases, the demand for clean drinking water would increase, making it ever so important for a feasible and inexpensive solution to filter water to be found. This project aims to investigate the use of a widely available waste material, eggshells, in inhibiting the growth of the bacteria Pseudomonas putida and Staphylococcus epidermidis and in removing heavy metal ions such as iron(III) ions, copper(II) ions and zinc ions from solutions. The results showed that heated eggshell powder was antibacterial against the bacteria tested, while unheated eggshell powder was effective in the removal of heavy metal ions. A prototype was then created for the purification of water with eggshells as a filter. Preliminary experiments with the prototype have shown that it was effective in removing heavy metal ions. Such a prototype would allow people in developing materials to filter contaminated water at a low cost, hence increasing the availability of potable water.

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