Siphon filter assessment for Northern Ghana

The siphon filter is a household water filter developed by the Basic Water Needs Foundation based on the design of ceramic candle filters. The siphon filter is marketed under brand names CrystalPur and Tulip and is sold for roughly US$10. An independent Dutch laboratory found log reductions of 4.4-5.5 for the filter, and the filter features flow rates of roughly 3-5 liters per hour. This thesis evaluates the viability of the siphon filter for households in Northern Ghana, where water- borne diseases are a serious issue. With the help of Pure Home Water, a social enterprise that sells household water treatment and safe storage technologies in Northern Ghana, a field study was conducted in twenty-four (24) households in this region. The study consisted of household visits, water quality analysis and an Effective Use survey, which determined how properly the technology was used. Households drinking low and high turbidity source waters were studied, from a mix of middle and lower class households. A preparatory study was conducted at a MIT laboratory prior to the Ghana field study in order to be most effective during the field study. Initially, the field study was designed to avoid recontamination of siphon filtered water samples by taking filtered water samples directly from filter taps rather than sampling lower (post-filtration) container water. However, six (6) of forty-eight (48) filtered water samples showed higher levels of contamination than household stored water samples, indicating that recontamination occurred despite sampling directly from taps.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Ziff, Sara Elizabeth

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Susan Murcott.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/53074

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/53074