@MrsDocAtCDI@DocAtCDI It looks like a pain in the ass. There are many things worth preserving... send it back or it in a corner. But honestly it's kinda weird… is that the look you’re going for?
🧲 She didn't use a membrane. She used magnets.
Mia Heller, 18, built the system in her garage in 2025. The mechanism: ferrofluid bonds to microplastic particles as water flows through. A magnetic field pulls the entire mixture out. The ferrofluid gets recovered and reused.
Result: 95.52% of microplastics removed. Standard municipal treatment plants remove 70 to 90 percent.
A 2025 University of New Mexico study found microplastic concentrations in human brain tissue rose 50 percent in less than a decade.
She built a better answer in a garage.
Reference :-Smithsonian Magazine March 2026, Regeneron ISEF 2025, University of New Mexico microplastics study 2025