Soular 365: the Sustainable Purification of Unsanitary Water In Less Developed Countries

Limited access to clean drinking water in less developed regions poses serious health issues for individuals without water sanitation services. Despite advances that provide ways to eliminate microorganisms from polluted water sources, 2.1 billion individuals lack access to safe drinking water services, meaning they are forced to acquire their own sources of hydration without regulations on water pollution and quality (WHO, 2017). A prevalent waterborne disease derived from this conundrum is diarrhea, claiming the lives of 2,195 children around the world each day (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). A probable cause of this issue limited resource availability, as electrical power sources as well as necessary economic advances are not present in the least developed of countries. This experimental study investigates the ability of a cost-effective and sustainably-powered ultraviolet radiation water purification system to reduce populations of E. coli bacteria related to diarrheal illness in less developed countries. Turbidity will be employed as an explanatory variable in order to account for discrepancies of UV-C wave penetration in water with high particulate density, and an inferential statistics T-test will be used to assess if the degree of bacterial reduction is significant when compared to the original concentration of E. coli in the sample. The results of this study revealed a statistically significant reduction in Escherichia coli, supporting the potential of an inexpensive and sustainable water purification system to reduce waterborne illness in the less developed world