KCRG-TV9 features CSRI project

Professor of Chemistry Charley Liberko and Ben Hewson ’19 were featured in a story that aired on KCRG-TV9 on July 10, 2018.

The two are studying how they can use sawdust to clean metals out of drinking water. While it’s still early in the research process, the team hopes their findings could eventually make a difference in countries where clean water is hard to find.

“We can go turn on the faucet and it’s usually fine to drink but for people in developing countries who get water from a stream or well, a lot of that water can be contaminated and can’t be filtered because we’re talking about metal ions,” Hewson said in the story.

Forty students worked side-by-side with 20 faculty members on a variety of intensive research projects for the Cornell Summer Research Institute (CSRI). The eight-week institute took place May 21–July 13, 2018.