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What are the ideas of the Pukyong students who won the national contest?
WRITER Department of External Cooperation WRITE DAY 2019-12-26
COUNT 182
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What are the ideas of the Pukyong students who won the national contest?
Department of External Cooperation 2019-12-26 182

"Gargle, what if we put it in an eco-friendly capsule?"
Pukyong National University's students received the grand prize at the Korean Environmental Sciences Society' Contest

△ Award winning students. From the left, Kim Yu-heon, Kwon Soo-hyeon, Kim Ga-yeon, and Jeong Kyeong-rok ⓒPhoto by Lee Sung-jae (PR team)

How about putting the gargle in an eco-friendly capsule that is harmless to the human body instead of a plastic container to reduce the use of plastic?

At the '2019 National University Student Contest for Improving Various Environmental Problems' hosted by the Korean Environmental Sciences Society (Chairman Ahn Seung-won), the work of Pukyong National University student team's Eco-friendly Gargle Capsule' was the subject.

The student team (Lee won-ki, advisor professor) of the Department of Polymer Engineering, Pukyong National University Jeong Kyeong-rok (28 years old, 4th grads), Kim Yu-heon(25 years old, 4th grade), Kwon Soo-hyeon (23years old, 4th grade) and Kim Ga-yeon (22years old, 3rd grade) received the best evaluation in this work by suggesting the development of an eco-friendly capsule containing small amounts of gargle solution using alginate.

Alginate is a mucus component extracted from brown algae such as seaweed and kelp. It is edible and harmless to human body, and it is applied to various fields such as food and medicine.

Pukyong students put calcium, which reacts with alginate, into the gargle solution, and then used ice cubes to freeze each 20 ㎖ of the gargle solution using an ice cube to form capsules.

They immersed this frozen gargle solution in an alginate solution to make eco-friendly gargle capsules. It is the principle that calcium in the gargle solution causes polymerization reaction with alginate as the gargle solution melts and a film is formed on the surface.

The finished gargle capsule has a little elasticity like jelly, and when a person bites into the mouth, the surface of the gargle bursts and the gargle solution can be used.

The free fall test showed that this goggle capsule had a strength that would not burst even when dropped from a height of 50 ㎝.

Jeong said, “Alginate-containing membranes are not only harmful to the human body but are easily decomposed in the natural environment and can be disposed of as general waste. I hope this idea helps a little in reducing the plastics used in everyday life, such as gargle liquid containers.” <Pukyong Today>


△ A Photo of Eco-friendly Gargle Capsule.