Team:Xiamen City/Social
Social Context
In March, an explosion at a factory that produces m-phenylenediamine in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, drew people’s attention to a chemical that can contaminate water effectively in very small quantities. The explosion caused by a m-phenylenediamine producer led to serious causalities. (44 persons died, 32 persons critical conditions, 58 persons seriously injured) In the months following the explosion, it was reported that the amount of m-phenylenediamine in water had slowly declined, but we could still find that many aquatic organisms along the edge of Xiangshui were continuously affected by m-phenylenediamine. At the same time, m-phenylenediamine is also an important raw material for industrial textiles and plays a very important role in industrial production. In order to further prevent the ecological impact of m-phenylenediamine, our team hopes to find a new method that can degrade m-phenylenediamine. Usually, the degradation of m-phenylenediamine wastewater will use chemical degradation method. Because the content of m-phenylenediamine in water is very low, a large number of chemical agents need to be added to the polluted water. At the same time, the by-products produced by the reaction may cause secondary pollution to the water body.In this case, chemical degradation methods may not only increase the pollution of m-phenylenediamine to water, but also increase the cost of degradation of m-phenylenediamine. Therefore, our team hopes to cultivate a new microorganism for biochemical degradation of m-phenylenediamine, reducing the cost of decomposition of m-phenylenediamine. Through this method, we hope that the pollution of water body caused by m-phenylenediamine can be reduced without reducing the production capacity of m-phenylenediamine, which is an important material for the development of world industrialization. In the way, we can protect the animals and plants living next to the manufacturing plant of m-phenylenediamine, and achieve the purpose of protecting the natural environment.
We are a high school iGEM team from Xiamen. We divided our team into dry group and wet group. Our wet group is instructed by Dr. Cao at Xiamen University, who majors in pharmacochemistry and biology. They focus on culturing and studying microorganism. Our dry group team is led by Mr. Lu, MBA degree holder. We are from all over the China and share the common mission of solving the problem of water pollution.