Muhammad Zubair
Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, College of Natural + Applied Sciences
Chicken Feathers Derived Filter for Water Purification
Introduce yourself...
I am MUHAMM ZUBAIR, Ph.D Candidate in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science who is passionate to work in the field of environment friendly materials because of their potential to solve the climate change issues around the globe.
What are you researching and what do you hope comes out of your research?
I am working on the development of green and sustainable materials which have potential to reduce the harmful effects of fossil carbon-based materials on living organisms and the environment. Specifically, I developed a bio-based filter from chicken feathers for water purification. This study will help to purify the industrial wastewater particularly in Canada and worldwide.
How did presenting a Three Minute Thesis (3MT) help explain your research to the public?
3MT presentation helped me to develop skills that challenged me to explain my research project to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes.
What inspires you to do research?
The access to clean drinking water to everyone is a key to building a healthy and sustainable society. I have pursued it as a topic of my master thesis and developed environmentally benign films for food packaging applications. I continue to work on the development of innovative green materials in my Ph.D. program especially for water remediation from toxic metals using chicken feathers protein.
What are three keywords important to your 3MT?
Water, Heavy Metals, Filter
How does your research impact local, provincial, or global communities at large?
Our developed water purification filter can purify the heavy metals contaminated water of Albert's oil and gas industries. It has potential to provide a low-cost filter for water purification of Alberta's Indigenous and rural communities and across Canada. Globally, it can be a viable option to decontaminate the heavy metals polluted water especially in south Asian countries.
If you had to dedicate your research to anyone from the past, present, or future—who would it be and why?
I would like to dedicate my research to Nobel Laurate 2020 Dr. Michael Houghton (University of Alberta) because of his developed hepatitis C virus vaccine which can save millions of people around the world.
Image Description - 1st image: shows the ground chicken feathers, 2nd image: how our developed filter looks like, 3rd image: chicken feathers-derived filters have the potential to provide clean water around the globe.