Khushi Thakkar, a freshman at Jasper High School, placed first at the Texas Junior Academy of Science held at Texas A&M in October 2016. Her project titled “From Wash to Squash: A Novel Approach to Purifying Used Household Water for Agricultural Applications” aimed to develop a cheap and accessible method of purifying greywater. Her project implemented organic filtration materials into a two-step filtration system that removed common household contaminants from greywater at a rate as much as three times as effective as commercial filtration materials.
Khushi came up with the idea of purifying greywater after noticing that the severe watering restrictions that are often enforced during times of drought actually harm plants, while there are no limitations on how much water households can use. Hundreds of gallons of water are wasted everyday per household, which could instead be reused. In the future, this filtration system could be implemented into households for reuse of water or could send purified water to farms during droughts to support healthy plant growth and prevent decreases in crop production. Khushi hopes that her filtration system can be manufactured on a large scale and distributed around the United States to encourage people to reuse greywater.
This project has earned Khushi many awards at District, Regional, and State Science Fair, including a spot at the American Junior Academy of Science in Boston, Massachusetts on February 2017.
Khushi has been an exemplary student at Samvid and we wish her a bright future as a scientist.