Unused, but not unwanted

Every day, mountains of bruised or blemished fruits deemed unsightly and unappealing to consumers are destined for the bins.

Seeking to “discover value-added use for fruit waste”, Year 4 student Amira Binti MOHAMAD RAFI (Major in Life Sciences, Minor in Aquatic Ecology) and her interdisciplinary team worked on a sustainability-related project at Ridge View Residential College (RVRC) to give citrus fruit peel a new lease of life.

Amira, together with Badrul AMIN from the Faculty of Science (FOS), Vanessa CHUA and GOH Qi Rong from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) as well as CHOI Min Sui from the School of Computing, set out to find suitable fruit waste combinations to create biodegradable Super Absorbent Polymers (SAPs) that are comparable to vermiculite - a mineral commonly used to increase water retention in soil - and to determine the conditions for their use in Singapore’s climate.  

At the end of their project, the group found that while SAPs are able to absorb water up to twice their mass, they are not as effective as vermiculite.  

These findings notwithstanding, Amira believes that the experience of using the world as their classroom was both fun and enriching.

She says, “The team tapped on each other’s diverse strengths. For example, those of us from FOS focused on analysis and scientific interpretation while my friends from FASS eloquently tied in the whole project together.” 

Amira spent a year as a Residential Assistant at RVRC.