Public school students in Pará create 'smart paper' with açaí and win international awards

The group's most recent achievement was 1st place overall in the International High School category at ExpoCiencias Nacional Chile 2026. At the event, the team from Pará competed against projects from Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Colombia and six other Brazilian teams.

Before the victory in Chile, the work had already won the gold medal at the scientific exhibition held in Paraguay, between October 6th and 8th, and a prominent award at Milset Brasil, in Fortaleza (CE). Given the results, the trajectory of the young scientists will include presentations and events in Santarém, Belém, Brasília and New York, in the United States.

The "smart paper" was designed to primarily serve riverside communities, quilombolas and isolated populations that need to check the quality of water consumed in a practical and accessible way. The technology consists of producing a fiber from the trunk of the banana tree impregnated with açaí extract, which changes its color when in contact with water, visually indicating the pH level.

In addition to the social and health aspect, environmental research sought a solution to one of the main bottlenecks in the production of traditional handmade paper: high water consumption. The use of Amazonian biomass combined with the project's techniques made it possible to reduce water consumption during the production process, also enabling the reuse of water used in manufacturing.

The project is authored by students Giulia Cabral Guerreiro, Marcos Vinícius Santos de Oliveira and Matheus Willian Jordão Rodrigues, under the guidance of professor Andreza Maria Santos de Oliveira and co-supervision of Silvana Maria Cabral Guerreiro.