How could we have thought so wrongly of as banana peel that it always hits the garbage? Utility of anything seems to be in the eyes of the beholder. The banana peel hasn't been an exception. What most of us looked at as waste was converted to a thing of utility by Prithwis Mukhopadlyay, a 14-year-old prodigy. This Bengali boy, nourished in the US, Lake Junior High in Woodbury, Minnesota, has come up with an idea to convert banana peels to biogas. . It's well known that almost any organic waste can be converted to biogas. But why biogas from banana peel has hit the news is because it produced five times as much biogas as manure , a commonly used source for producing biogas, in the experiments Prithwis conducted. He filled two airtight containers, one with manure and the other with banana peels. Then he mixed each content with water and connected them to empty jars via pipes to collect the gas produced. He placed a heater next to each jar and measured the gas collected for 60 days. His studies proved that banana peels produced five times more biogas than manure. This project titled 'Comparison analysis: Eco-friendly source of energy for the future,' earned him a spot in Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge. This weekend, the young whiz is to showcase his research work along with 40 other finalists at Washington. "Initially, I thought of doing a project that would reduce global warming. Things changed after I visited a biogas plant in a village in India during my summer vacations. It was an amazing experience," Prithwis says. Why could Prithwis's finding receive the attention of the media?
Because he is a prodigy. Because he is of Bengali descent. Because he used an extremely rare organic waste to produce biogas. Because his research proved that banana peels can produce more biogas.