From nitrogen pollution to battery recycling, young scientists take action to help society

For Piotr Olbryś, a 19-year-old from Poland, it was his brother’s hearing aid that motivated him to look into how to make lithium-ion batteries more environmentally friendly. 

His work earned him one of the four first prizes, each worth € 7 000, at the 2024 edition of the EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS). 

“My brother has a hearing aid,” he said. “So, he’s constantly changing and throwing away batteries. That caused me to start thinking about the waste this generates.” Lithium-ion batteries are found in almost every electronic gadget.

Olbryś was one of 143 young scientists from 37 countries, all aged between 14 and 20, who came together from 9 to 14 September in Katowice, Poland, to present their research.

Most of them were there because they had won similar contests in their home countries. EUCYS 2024 was funded by the European Commission, which co-organised it with the University of Silesia, Katowice, and the Polish Children’s Fund.

In the end, the four first prizes were awarded to contestants from Austria, Bulgaria, Poland and the United States.

Better way to tune instruments 

The young scientists presented their projects at booths in front of visitors and judges. Their research focused on an amazingly diverse range of fields.

Paula Morata González, an 18-year-old from Spain, is keen to improve the tuning of musical instruments.

“I play the harpsichord and study at the conservatory,” she said. “During tuning classes, I found it much more intuitive to find beautiful notes by looking at their mathematical proportions.”

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It all started when I learned about photosynthesis in high school. I wanted to know more, and just kept digging.

Eventually she built a model that could help tune instruments. “At first my music teacher thought I was crazy,” she laughed. “But I love combining science and art.” 

González starts university this year, where she hopes to continue on this interdisciplinary path, double-majoring in music and biomedical sciences.

Artificial intelligence

At their booths, the contestants were interviewed by a team of judges, mostly scientists themselves, who were duly impressed. 

“The quality of the projects was very impressive this year,” said Milan Macek, president of the jury. “A trend seems to be the increased use of artificial intelligence.”

Macek has been a judge at the seven previous editions of EUCYS. He is a professor of genetics at Prague’s Charles University, but in Katowice, he was hard-pressed to pick the winners.

“There are not enough prizes for all the talent here, so hard choices had to be made.”

In parallel with EUCYS, another contest was held in Katowice, in the style of a hackathon. During EU TalentOn 2024, 108 participants aged between 21 and 35 developed scientific projects to address societal challenges such as climate change and water management.

The grand prize was won by a team of young researchers from the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Italy for their cancer prevention project Breath for Life. It received an award of €12 000.

High-speed camera or chessboard?

Most EUCYS contestants also targeted societal challenges with their projects. The work of another winner, 17-year-old Aleksandra Petkova from Bulgaria, might, for example, help design more efficient ships. 

“It can help us build ships that use less fuel, reducing emissions,” she said. In her research project, she used sources like drone and satellite imagery to study the wakes of ships and make them more efficient, combining physics with a very practical goal.

Petkova hails from a family of scientists, which influenced her to take part in science contests like EUCYS. 

“I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing something with science,” she said. “As a small child, I was already playing with magnets and mirrors, trying to understand the deeper principles of how they worked.”

She’s still overwhelmed by the accolades her work received. “I don’t know what I’ll do with the money. Maybe I’ll buy a new chessboard,” she laughed. 

“On the other hand, I would like a high-speed camera for experiments. A few thousand more frames per second would make a big difference.”

Organic batteries

Olbryś from Poland looked at organic cathodes in batteries that are produced without transition metals, generally toxic for the environment, but lack the energy density of today's less green versions. This is why he researched new material combinations and found options that combine the best of both worlds.

“I didn’t have access to a supercomputer, so I just did them on my home laptop,” he said. “Sometimes one calculation would take two or three entire days. The sound of the cooling fans caused me to have a lot of dreams about helicopters,” he joked.

Starting university in Warsaw in two weeks, Olbryś hopes to continue his research. “I love projects where science can change the world.”

Go for it

Lamia Music, a 15-year-old Austrian who looked at new kinds of solar cells, was giddy upon receiving first prize, in addition to an award from the London International Youth Science Forum. 

“I almost didn’t go to my national competition,” she said. “I just went there for fun, to meet interesting people. Now I suddenly have this prize,” she laughs. “Sometimes you just need to go for it I guess.”

Her project worked on new types of solar cells, the central component of solar panels. “It all started when I learned about photosynthesis in high school,” she remembers. “I wanted to know more, and just kept digging.”

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Farmers are really struggling with this. I wanted to do something real for the world.

For Music, the prize, however, wasn’t the most important thing about the contest. 

“What I love about science is that you can learn new things, and meet new people,” she said. “That’s what I did here. I was fascinated just walking around and learning about fields I didn’t know anything about.”

For the young Austrian, science is a passion. “Sometimes I will wake up in the middle of the night with ideas,” she said.

For now, she wants to continue with her research, partly under the auspices of a local university. 

Nitrogen pollution

Not all winners at EUCYS were from Europe. Nikhil Vemuri, 17, from the United States, won the fourth first prize.

“I live in North Carolina, in an area with a lot of farms. Today, they use too much fertiliser on their fields, which causes environmental problems, such as nitrogen pollution. I wanted to help.”

He designed a software tool that could predict, based on satellite imagery, where over- and under-fertilisation is likely to happen. 

For example, if a field slopes downwards, fertiliser will likely concentrate at the bottom. Vemuri’s tool allows farmers to use fertiliser more efficiently and sparingly, reducing pollution.

“Farmers are really struggling with this. I wanted to do something real for the world.”

Beyond being celebrated for his project, Vemuri repeated what other participants already said. Sure, receiving awards is nice. But what really makes EUCYS special is the connections made.

“I talked to some fascinating projects here,” he said. “But more importantly, I made some great friends. That’s what makes an event like this so amazing.”