STUDY AND DESIGN OF ECO-FRIENDLY, COST EFFECTIVE WATER FILTER USING EASILY AVAILABLE LOCAL MATERIALS

Abstract

About one-fifth of people on earth lack the access to safe drinking water, a condition that resulted in the death of 2.2 million people in 2004, as per the records of United Nations. Clean water use being a prime concern in many communities of developing countries. Contaminated water plays significant role in taking numerous lives in these localities, for which a number of efforts are being made for accessing safe purified drinking water. Fortunately, efficient and cheap water purification systems are being utilized and being tried to be accessed worldwide for easy access to clean water. n the following project we had tried to develop a “Low Cost Water Purification Technique” using the basic ideas of Slow Sand Filter, some locally available filter material like charcoal, bone char, sand, manganese modified sand, clay, rice husk, banana residue ash, anthracite and try to improve the methodology using the UV Filter, RO Filter, and Activated Carbon Filter mechanism. Main focus was removal of iron from surface water by adsorption and oxidation followed by precipitation technique. Among all the adsorption media used, manganese modified sand proved to be a good adsorbent in removal of iron. For oxidation followed by precipitation, the ash produced from banana residue was used which proved to give the best result in removal of iron and also was having the cheapest material cost. A ceramic membrane with locally collected clay and rice husk was prepared which also proved to be effective for removal of turbidity, but may be due to rigorous use of the filter or any manufacturing defect, there were cracks developed on its surface and was discarded for any further use.