Optimizing flow rate and bacterial removal performance of ceramic pot filters in Tamale, Ghana

Pure Home Water (PHW) is an organization that seeks to improve the drinking water quality for those who do not have access to clean water in Northern Ghana. This study focuses on the further optimization of ceramic pot filters, which is a promising low-cost household water treatment and the main product manufactured by Pure Home Water, by investigating the relationship between manufacturing parameters and filter performance. The manufacturing parameters researched in this thesis includes rice husk size and the mixing process, and the performance variables includes flow rate and bacterial removal. Through this research, the author determined the positive exponential relationship between rice husk size and flow rate, and the negative step-function relationship between rice husk size and bacterial removal, as well as between flow rate and bacterial removal. In addition, pugmill proved to work better in mixing water, rice husk and clay powder since the filters made from the mixture mixed by pugmill had higher total coliform bacterial removal than those mixed by hand. Besides the investigation of the relationship, the author applied the study to full-sized filters, finding that full-sized filters had the same trends as sample ceramic disks and very similar results in bacterial removal with disks when the rice husk size is smaller than 1080 [mu]m.

Department dc:contributor.department

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

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Zhang, Yiyue, S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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/1721.1/97831

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/97831