Water Guard: A New Solution to Water Quality Problems

From October 12th to 15th, 2019, the final of the 5th China College Students' “Internet Plus” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition was held in Zhejiang University. Liu Wei，a junior graduate at USST，and his team won the bronze prize for their project on the water quality guard of unattended water body based on microbial media.

Nowadays, the overproduction caused by rapid economic development and urbanization is the most serious problem that hits rivers and lakes in China. Excessive artificial rivers and lakes are one of the greatest problems that threaten the water ecological environment. Due to the closed and non-flowing nature of the water body, the self-purification capacity of the water body is seriously degraded, which directly leads to the loss of ecological functions and the collapse of the ecosystem in the water zone. With the original intention of environmentally friendly and resources-saving water spatial pattern, Liu Wei and his team engaged in the project. The team's self-developed high-efficiency aeration equipment and systems can rapidly increase the dissolved oxygen content of water bodies, which is two to three times that of conventional water tankers or impellers. As a result, the dissolved oxygen of the water body is rapidly increased, and the problem of black odor can be solved within three to five days. Depending on the water quality, the product can automatically control the flow rate of the water stream, thereby inhibiting the growth rate of algae and preventing algae blooms.

 “water quality guard”  developed by Liu Wei and his Team

At present, this product has been vigorously promoted by Shanghai Municipal Government, Shanghai Education Commission, the Pinghu Agricultural Bureau and Wujiang Water Authority, Suzhou. Customers include large state-owned enterprises like China Railway, China Construction and some corporations like Guozhen Environmental Protection, Yonker Environmental Protection (HK）. They also established extensive cooperative relations with other environmental protection companies in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai.

However, the achievement has not come easily. It is difficult for Liu Wei to set about entrepreneurship practice that he had not done before. In the beginning, he did not know how to make a start, and thus he actively participated in various entrepreneurship competitions, listened to the different ideas of the contest judges and quickly absorbed the relevant knowledge of entrepreneurship field. Meanwhile, as a science student, Liu Wei had the biggest difficulty in the competition in writing a business plan and making a live demonstration of his product. He has the technological knowledge, but not in finance, material layout and other aspects. Therefore, he widely attracts students from different schools such as College of Communication and Art Design, Business School to join in his team. Fortunately, with the help of team members along the way, they helped each other overcome many difficulties.

When it came to the feeling of winning the prize, he felt excited and grateful. “I was very lucky to meet my team partners. Our sweat and all-nighter efforts reach the achievements,” said Liu Wei. He thanked every advisor for their careful guidance and every team member for their dedication. He hoped this practice could become a warm memory for them all. What’s more, Liu Wei was very happy to have gained a lot. “Internet +” competition enlightened himself to try to start his own business. He has learned how to write a business plan, how to present his project to the audience in a most effective way. At the same time, he constantly enriched his theoretical knowledge in the practice.