Visiting the Hu’nan Nuclear Geology 311 Brigade

We visited the Hunan Nuclear Geology 311 Brigade, which fights uranium pollution on the front line, to best understand the current situation of pollution abatement. Their feedback showed that they were using a comparatively high-cost, time-consuming and possibly incomplete strategy in which they buried at least the lowest-grade nuclear waste underground and grew appropriate plants on the site. All these shortcomings motivated us to figure out a better solution.

Consulting with two experts

We interviewed two experts, Prof. LIU Chunli who specializes in nuclear environmental chemistry and Prof. LEI Yian, who specializes in physics, for their professional viewpoints about uranium and uranium pollution.

“What about U?” — A questionnaire survey

During this summer, we conducted a questionnaire survey to gather information about public awareness of uranium contamination, uranium pollution treatments and whether synthetic biology could help to solve these problems. According to the results of the questionnaire, we designed a brochure and handed it out to correct erroneous public perceptions of uranium pollution and spread basic knowledge of synthetic biology for public education. Read next Public Education section for more information.

Public education and other work

Our team members designed a brochure and handed it out.Meanwhile we introduced the project and the laboratory of the Peking iGEM 2016 to middle school students on summer vacation. We also introduced the project for iGEM to the middle school students on summer vacation, and showed them around the labs.

In addition to this education and polling work, we extracted water samples from Weiming Lake on the campus and coal-washing wastewater from Shan Xi province for uranyl concentration measurements by ICP-MS. We subsequently measured the nuclear radiation intensity in the lab and some places around campus. Following the tradition of the Peking iGEM, we also guided BHU_China which will attend the High School track in the Giant Jamboree this year.