Ceramic Water Purification

Many people in the developing world have no option but to drink from contaminated sources that potentially contain waterborne illnesses which are the cause of 3.4 million deaths per year. The goal of this project is to create ceramic filters that can filter at least two liters per hour and have a bacteria kill rate of 99%. Filters are made to be fitted on to the end of a PVC pipe. Filters of varying mixtures of terracotta clay and sawdust are fired and then painted with silver nanoparticles. The flow rate and kill rate of the filters are measured with an E. Coli solution. Our results reveal that there are trade-offs between the flow rate and kill rate of different filter dimensions. More data is needed to optimize our design, but the best filter thus far was 1.3cm thick (after firing) with a flow rate of 1.85 L/hour (extrapolated from the time taken to filter 100mL) and a kill rate of 99%. Regarding composition, the most effective ratio of sawdust to clay so far has been 1:1. Work is ongoing to consistently meet our desired parameter