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Image: Mark Kennedy Bantugon | Facebook

A son of a Filipino farmer has won a James Dyson Award for discovering an eco-friendly sealant made from Pili tree waste.

The James Dyson Awards is an annual competition that celebrates and encourages upcoming design engineers. And for 2021, 2,000 inventors from 28 countries around the world have submitted their entries.

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Image: www.jamesdysonaward.org

Here in the Philippines, the Pili Seal created by Mark Kennedy Bantugon won the national award. Bantugon is a student of the Philippine State College of Aeronautics and also grew up as a son of a local farmer.

He was able to come up with the eco-friendly, two-component sealant during his internship at an aviation company, and by using his experiences from childhood working with his father.

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Image: www.jamesdysonaward.org

The young Pinoy labored and went through 38 formulations until landing on the right one.

Pili Seal went through 20 property tests ranging from chemical, mechanical, physical, thermal, and rheological.

Bantugon aims that his discovery can be studied further so it can be used in other industries such as construction, land and water transportation, wood, buildings, and metal sheet roof application.

As a result, this should give Filipino farmers more ways to generate income.

“I was struck by the lack of options to effective and sustainably-produced sealants in the aviation industry and thought there should be a way around. Pili Seal pioneers the study of upcycling waste materials for production of aviation sealant. Through my invention, I hope to inject a new perspective that beneficial and sustainable usage can be found from waste materials. I hope this will inspire greater innovation in global aviation, while empowering the livelihoods of local Filipino farmers through new streams of income,”

Mark Kennedy Bantugon, creator of Pili Seal

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