Dag (middle) along with other participants Photo: International Water Institute18-year-old Dag competed with a record-breaking field of more than 8600 projects from around the worldA Turkish teenager has won the 2009 Stockholm Junior Water Prize for developing an innovative method for generating energy from falling rain drops.
Ceren Burcak Dag received a USD5,000 award and a crystal sculpture for using the specialty plastic polyvinylidene fluoride, PVDF, a non-reactive and pure thermoplastic fluoropolymer, to transfer the kinetic energy of raindrops into electrical energy.
The Stockholm Water Foundation and the Stockholm International Water Institute announced the prize winner to an audience that included high-school students from 29 countries who won their national competitions, qualifying them to compete for the international prize.
After the award ceremony, Ceren Bucak Dag explained her hopes for her award-winning project. "We have a new energy source from rain with a piezoelectric effect with this project," she said. "I hope that my work will contribute to the development of the next generation of energy panels where rain, sun, and wind are combined."
Piezoelectricity is the ability of some materials to generate an electric potential when mechanical stress, such as the impact of a raindrop is applied.
"Many young people are concerned about climate change, but few will take action to identify a solution," noted the Stockholm Junior Water Prize Jury in its citation. "Reducing CO2 emissions by developing alternative environment-friendly, renewable energy sources is a specific response to this global problem. This year’s winner had a spark of genius in developing a high tech solution that used PVDF, a smart material with piezoelectric properties, to transfer the kinetic energy of raindrops into electrical energy."
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