CT Student Earns First Patent for Work on Removing Water Contamination

Snigtha Mohanraj, STEM student at New Haven's Engineering and Science University Magnet School and a Werth Industry Academic Fellow at Southern Connecticut State University, has registered her first patent.

Snigtha, the 2024 Women of Innovation Youth Category award winner, began her independent research in seventh grade.   Women of Innovation is a program of the Connecticut Technology Council. 

“It’s all been about targeting different contaminants found in our water,” she explained. “Particularly, I’ve been interested in the sense that water contamination is also an issue of social justice.”

“I’ve conducted a lot of independent research regarding water contamination removal,” Mohanraj told News at Southern. “And then I’ve also done some volunteering and community work to try to make STEM research more accessible to New Haven youth, just because a lot of students in New Haven don’t really do anything research related, especially because we don’t have research programs at our schools.”

That’s because rural and low-income communities may lack access to treated water. Her patent, US 11,931,717 B2, focuses on removing microplastics and oil from water using natural materials.

Mohanraj said she began focusing on microplastics before many people were aware of how ubiquitous they have become. “Now, a lot more people know. But [I’m] also working on oil, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, all of those things that we can also find in our water,” she said.

“I’ve seen her growth since she first contacted us to participate to now, someone who is just pretty amazing, and has actually herself been a mentor to other students,” said Physics Professor Christine Broadbridge, executive director of Research and Innovation, and director of the Connecticut State College and Universities Center for Nanotechnology, Werth Fellowship, and SCSU i-HUB, which is based at Southern and offers the Werth fellowships.

“Right now, I plan to study environmental science and hopefully political science as well,” she said. “I’ve been kind of interested in the intersection between STEM and government.”

While she has been focusing on science since seventh grade, Mohanraj has been taking more civics courses.

“I’ve always been geared more towards the science and technology part of my education,” she said. “And then this year I learned about the absence of science being used in government. And then I thought, that’s a really good focus point. How can we use science and government to actually aid effective policy? So I’ve done a lot of climate advocacy work within New Haven.”