{"id":88495,"date":"2026-02-27T18:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T18:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method"},"modified":"2026-02-27T18:52:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T18:52:37","slug":"oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method","title":{"rendered":"Oregon Teen Develops Low-Cost Saltwater Purification Method"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Liberia. <\/strong><\/span>A high school student in Portland, Oregon, has found a much cheaper and easier method to turn salt water into drinkable fresh water, bypassing existing methods. His research has caught the attention of major technology companies and universities, such as Intel and MIT.<\/p>\n

Chaitanya Karamchedu, or Chai as he prefers to be called, is a senior at Jesuit High School. He is young, and he has big plans.<\/p>\n

\u201c1 in 8 people do not have access to clean water, it\u2019s a crying issue that needs to be addressed,\u201d said Karamchedu.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best access for water is the sea, so 70 percent of the planet is covered in water and almost all of that is the ocean, but the problem is that\u2019s saltwater… scientists looked at desalination, but it\u2019s all still inaccessible to places and it would cost too much to implement on a large scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karamchedu has done at his high school what teams of experts in high-tech laboratories with deep pockets have not: find a cheap way to desalinate water.<\/p>\n

\u201cSea water is not fully saturated with salt,\u201d he explained, so he added a polymer that bonds with and then absorbs the salt molecules in the water. Previously, scientists have tried to break the bonds between salt and water, with little success.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were concentrated on that 10 percent of water that\u2019s bonded to the salt in sea and no one looked at the 90 percent that was free,\u201d said Karamchedu\u2019s biology teacher Dr. Lara Shamieh. \u201cChai just looked at it and said if 10 percent is bonded and 90 is free, why are we so focused on this 10 percent, let\u2019s ignore it and focus on 90.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, salt water is 90 percent drinkable, and Karamchedu\u2019s polymer isolates that drinkable water from water molecules that have bonded with salt, purifying it.<\/p>\n

Breaking molecular bonds is difficult and expensive, and Karamchedu\u2019s technique sidesteps the technology. \u201cWhat this is compared to current techniques, is that it\u2019s cheap and accessible to everyone, everyone can use it,\u201d said Shamieh.<\/p>\n

As an added bonus, the salt byproduct of Karamchedu\u2019s method can be used as a biodegradable fertilizer.<\/p>\n

For his work, Karamchedu has received a $10,000 award from Intel\u2019s International Science Fair and took second place at MIT\u2019s TechCon Conference. He also received a $2,000 grant from the Regeneron Science Talent Search, one of 300 high schoolers to receive the prestigious honor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were very encouraging, they could see things into it that I couldn\u2019t, because they\u2019ve been working their whole lives on this,\u201d said Karamchedu.<\/p>\n

Clean water, a resource that water.org estimates is denied to some 663 million people worldwide, is not Karamchedu\u2019s only area of interest. He also seeks to eradicate cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s working on at least mentally thinking about the idea of killing cancer cells from the inside out. I keep telling him to remember his high school biology teacher when he wins the Nobel prize,\u201d said Shamieh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can really see beauty in things that aren\u2019t immediately applicable, and at the same time I want to do something to make a difference that\u2019s not completely in the abstract. It\u2019s important what you do has an impact on people,\u201d Karamchedu added.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Liberia<\/span> Follow Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Liberia. A high school student in Portland, Oregon, has found a much cheaper and easier method to turn salt water into drinkable fresh water, bypassing existing methods. His research has caught the attention of major technology companies and universities, such as Intel and MIT. Chaitanya Karamchedu, or Chai as he prefers to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":88494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[234],"class_list":["post-88495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-miscellaneous","tag-liberia"],"yoast_head":"\nOregon Teen Develops Low-Cost Saltwater Purification Method - Liberia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A high school student in Portland, Oregon, has found a much cheaper and easier method to turn salt water into drinkable ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oregon Teen Develops Low-Cost Saltwater Purification Method\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A high school student in Portland, Oregon, has found a much cheaper and easier method to turn salt water into drinkable ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Liberia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-27T18:29:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-27T18:52:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/liberia\/sites\/37\/2026\/02\/sm_1772205728.134564.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"686\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Oregon Teen Develops Low-Cost Saltwater Purification Method\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-27T18:29:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-27T18:52:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method\"},\"wordCount\":557,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/liberia\/sites\/37\/2026\/02\/sm_1772205728.134564.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Liberia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"miscellaneous\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/oregon-teen-develops-low-cost-saltwater-purification-method\",\"name\":\"Oregon Teen Develops Low-Cost Saltwater Purification Method - 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