Yana Peeva of the ACS Class of 2021 Earned 3rd Place in Sustainergy6 in Israel

At the beginning of the second semester ACS junior Yana Peeva participated in the Sustainergy6 International Youth Competition for Renewable Energy. It must have been a very meaningful, invigorating and rewarding experience, but don’t take our word for it and check out her own account:

This February I was really lucky to participate in the Sustainergy6 International Youth Competition for Renewable Energy, held in Israel. In the course of a week, each of the eleven teams, comprised of students from Croatia, Italy, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Cyprus, Slovenia, Romania, Hawai’i, and Israel, had to solve a different engineering problem, using biomimicry. The competition was held at Kibbutz Yahel in the Arava desert, a small isolated community which utilizes biomimetic solutions on a daily basis. With inspiration all around us, the work on the projects continued from dawn until late in the night, but it never felt tiring. The Sustainergy6 competitors and mentors were the most dedicated, motivated, and remarkable student-scientists I have ever met, and working with them was a life-changing experience. In the end, all projects were of astounding quality, and to me they were all winning solutions. It was a great surprise for my whole team that we received the 3rd place award with our project for an enzymatic fuel cell, Ethacell.

It has been three months since my unforgettable experience in the Israeli desert, but I have still not lost connection with all of my new friends. Recently, my team got back together and recorded an adapted version of our presentation for this year’s ACS Science Fair.

I am extremely grateful for the invitation to participate in this competition as the first competitor from Bulgaria, and I am looking forward to working with the future ACS participants in Sustainergy!