CLAY FILTRATION OF MICROBES AND FLUORIDE. A RESEARCH PROJECT TOPIC ON SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
ABSTRACT
Consumption of contaminated water may result in several water-borne diseases, including hepatitis, typhoid, cholera, dysentery and other diseases that cause diarrhoea. One of the ways this problem can be prevented is by the use of household water treatment and safe storage. As a result of this, the ceramic water filter, which is one of the effective water treatment techniques, was studied and evaluated to provide information that, will help improve their performance and promote their use.
In this project, two kinds of ceramic filters were fabricated; one without hydroxylapatite and the other with hydroxylapatite. Their flow rates were determined and their ability to remove E.coli was also tested. The ability to scale up these filters to achieve a system that will provide large volumes of water per filtration was also explored in this project.
The results showed that, the two kinds of filters did not indicate significant difference in their flow rates and the E.coli removal of the filters proved successful. It was also realized for the scale up that, it is possible to connect the ceramic filters to produce a system that can produce large volumes of filtered water. However, the effectiveness of the system depends largely on the individual flow rate of the filters used.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
The human body is said to be made up of about 70% water. This shows how important water is to the survival of humans. The importance of water is such that life cannot be sustained beyond a few days, without water supply. Furthermore, the lack of adequate water supply leads to the spread of disease (Guy & Jamie 2003). Water is used in most human domestic activities including cooking, cleaning, and most importantly drinking, which is a means by which the water lever in the human system is maintained. In some of the non domestic uses of water, the purity of the water is not really an issue, e.g. in the case of washing. However, for domestic uses of water, the purity of water is very important, since it has a direct relationship with the health and wellbeing of the individual using the water. A very important example of this is when water is used for drinking.
