Water Filtration Optimization
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Date
2022-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Water filtration and treatment is an essential engineering process to support the demands of society. There has not been enough work done in this area which is highlighted by current shortcomings in water access. This problem will only increase over future decades. With an ever-increasing population, innovations will be required to meet the demands of water access. AguaClara Reach is a nonprofit that designed a gravity-powered treatment plant. Their technology is applicable anywhere but has applications in Humanitarian Engineering settings because it can be applied off the grid and has low operating costs. The treatment system needs to be highly optimized to use gravity power.
Since the AU20 semester, a group of undergraduate students at The Ohio State University has worked to create a water filtration apparatus for experiments. There was no work done on this project before the team started. They had an empty room and a vision for the research project. It began by understanding the theory behind water filtration and learning how the AguaClara treatment plant works. Then, the team purchased the components of the system. This also required research to know what features and sizes of equipment were required to run the experiments. The team made multiple design iterations on how to construct the system. This iterative process occurred over a few months before a final design was selected. The majority of the time on the project was spent on building the system. During this time, the team had to troubleshoot problems with the system and continue to improve its design. The team also practiced how to operate each component in the system and safely run tests.
At the end of the SP22 semester, the team was able to test the system. They successfully demonstrated that the system worked. The filter reduced influent water from over one hundred NTU to 0.2 NTU. This exceeded the design capacity of the system twenty times. The effluent water was also cleaner than the tap water in Smith Lab. Further analysis of the results, aligned with theoretical predictions. Many different filter theory phenomena were demonstrated in one test of the system.
This project demonstrated the potential for undergraduate-led research projects. The team received administrative help from two faculty members and technical support from the nonprofit. The team working on this project day-to-day was made up of all undergraduate students. The development of the Humanitarian Engineering Innovation Lab paralleled the creation of the research project. In two years, the undergraduate team transformed an empty room into a busy lab that supports twenty-five different projects and over one hundred students.
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Keywords
Water, Engineering, Filtration, Humanitarian