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Turkish delight for Rashmi
20 March 2007
A one-month research mission to Turkey has proved a delight for Abertay scientist Rashmi Chand.
The 27-year-old PhD student in Abertay’s School of Contemporary Sciences spent a month at Bogazici University in Istanbul exploring the use of very high frequency sound waves (“ultrasound”) to clean pollution from industrial waste water.
Rashmi is part of an Abertay team led by Professor David Bremner that last year developed technology capable of killing up to 99.9999% of E.coli bacteria in a body of water using ultrasound and high-pressure microbubbles.
Bogazici University is a centre of expertise for ultrasound technology, where Professor Nilsun Ince is recognised worldwide for her expertise.
Working with Professor Ince for a month enabled Rashmi to refine her research by testing the effects of different sound frequencies. As well as the relatively low frequency of 20 kHz that she had been testing before, Rashmi tested much higher frequency soundwaves at 300 kHz and 500 kHz.
She also experimented with a more sophisticated variant of the technology using zero-valent catalyst-assisted oxidation with ozone (ZOO). This involves adding iron and copper to the process to change the way that the chemical reactions happen.
Rashmi’s preliminary results show that the most effective frequency is 300kHz, with 100% of phenol – a common chemical used to represent a typical pollutant – being removed in just 25 minutes. This is twice as effective as the method using 20kHz soundwaves.
Rashmi said: “It was a very successful mission, although also very hard work! I did get a chance to discover yet another beautiful country and I it to be a great experience with the people, the country.”
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