How can accelerators address environmental issues? This summer, the EU-funded I.FAST project gathered highly motivated students from all across Europe to find innovative answers to that question.       The 2022 edition of the I.FAST Challenge-Based Innovation project was held at the European Scientific Institute (ESI) in Archamps, near Geneva. The event brought together 23 students of 17 different nationalities, with as many different backgrounds: physics and engineering, as well as law, business and environmental science. They spent ten days attending high-level seminars on accelerators and learning about their environmental applications. Multidisciplinary teams were then asked to suggest potential new applications and to present their project to experts in the field on the last day of the challenge.       

The winning project was announced at a ceremony held at CERN, during which participants faced a panel of renowned experts presided by Frédérick Bordry, former CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology. Devised by the “Human Beam” team, the idea of using particle accelerators to address algae blooms in lakes was deemed the most interesting by the jury.

https://home.cern/news/news/cern/bringing-students-and-experts-together-around-environmental-applications