Drinking water treatment: becoming more affordable with U.S. help

An affordable, sustainable drinking water treatment system designed by a U.S. laboratory is being used successfully in Ghana, India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, South America and the Philippines.

The technology, which uses ultraviolet light to disinfect water safely and cheaply, was designed by Ashok Gadgil at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

[...] The lab licensed the purification system to the U.S. firm WaterHealth International (WHI), which is working to expand access to affordable drinking water in developing countries.

WaterHealth Centre, India. Photo: WHI

[...] 1 million people have access to clean water from more than 200 WHI water centers in India, where the technology was introduced in 2006 and established through a partnership with the Naandi Foundation.

Other NGOs such as the Lions Club also have provided funding, as have several foreign-born physicians residing in the United States who want to support their home towns.

[...] In the past, donated or purchased water treatment technology sometimes failed [...] because communities had to struggle to maintain the facilities.

To overcome this, WHI developed “WaterHealth Centres” where water is treated centrally for a small community using a variety of approaches, including:

• ultraviolet water disinfection technology, which is highly effective against harmful germs, and does not require high energy, high water pressure or sophisticated maintenance procedures;
• new buildings, which also can be used for community meetings and social events, to house the systems;
• local personnel hired and trained to operate and maintain the systems;
• hygiene and health education programs that emphasize the economic benefits of avoiding waterborne illnesses;
• narrow-neck water-storage containers to avoid water recontamination;
• marketing to inform residents of the water treatment and its benefits;
• financing for a portion of initial installation costs ($20 per person for a small village in India, for example).

WHI asks communities to make a down payment – sometimes provided by a local government, philanthropist or NGO – and then helps finance the remaining balance. Once the loan is repaid, the community owns the center.

To cover loan payments and operation and maintenance costs, consumers are charged a small fee for purified water. [O]ne village in Ghana charges 5 cents for 20 liters of treated water.

Local entrepreneurs often start businesses delivering treated water by bicycle or truck.

Customers at the WaterHealth Centre in Afuaman, Ghana, wait for their water.

[In Ghana] WHI partners with U.S. nonprofit World Vision Ghana for the health-education component of the program. In December 2007, WHI opened a pilot water center in Afuaman, serving about 3,700 people. [...] Construction of five additional WHI centers in Ghana will be completed by March [2009] in partnership with the U.S. nonprofit Safe Water Network, which funds the project.

“The government of Ghana has been extremely supportive at both the district level, by assisting the communities in raising the down payments, and at the federal level, by waiving import taxes and duties on imported equipment,” said Bismark Nerquaye-Tetteh, who has worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s West Africa Water Initiative.

Source: Nancy Pontius, America.gov, 12 Jan 2009

South Africa: Joburg Water, University Agree to expand research expertise

Johannesburg Water (JU) and University of Johannesburg (UJ) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding [on collaboration] on water and sanitation research and development projects [...] specifically in water nanotechnologies, water purification, waste water treatment and innovation in water analysis.

Mr Jones Mnisi, Acting Chief Operation Officer, Johannesburg Water (JW). and Prof Derek van der Merwe, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Vice-Principal, University of Johannersburg (UJ) at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at Johannesburg Water on Friday, 16 January 2009. Photo: UJ.

Read more: Gabi Khumalo, Bua News / allAfrica.com, 16 Jan 2009 ; Johannesburg Water, 16 Jan 2009

Fog harvesting: a solution for Cape Verde’s water shortages?

When the rainy season ends in Cape Verde hundreds of families tap into another source of water: fog harvesting. Farmers track fog as their ancestors followed rain clouds, monitoring 15 double-sided nets that rise into the mountains.

[...] [R]esidents here have little access to safe drinking water due to a shortage of purification facilities and declining rainfall, a situation shared by 25 percent of the population – more than 100,000 people.

Close to the sea, the government-protected park on Santiago Island has ample fog, which does not often produce rain.

With the help of 200sqm of netting erected in 2005, Serra Malagueta’s residents are collecting fog water to supply their water needs. The nets capture fog, which then turns into water that drips into a trough and flows through pipes. The filtered water is fed into holding tanks that supply the water to the elementary school and community faucets.

Before fog nets families waited during the dry season for water to be trucked in from surrounding communities that have clean groundwater, for which they paid 2 US cents per litre. Most of the country’s water must be purified at energy-intensive production plants. It costs about $1 to desalinise 1,000 litres of water, according to the government. The state electricity company spent nearly $4 million dollars on water purification in 2006.

[...] Antonio Sabino, a local water engineer who tested fog nets 20 years ago for the National Institute of Agricultural Development and Investigation, told IRIN the nets offer a cheaper solution to cover the island’s water needs. “There is no pollution, no need for [purification-desalination] pumps, fossil fuels or motors.”

He estimated that on a windy, foggy day the 15 nets can produce more than 4,000 litres of water at a fraction of the cost residents paid for trucked-in water. Sabino told IRIN each net costs about $800, which includes labou rand a filter and net screen made from locally-available materials.

Portuguese engineers first experimented with fog nets in Cape Verde during the 1960s. A decade later, Dutch companies tried to revive fog water “harvesting,” but the trend again faded.

Water engineer Sabino said the risk scares people away. “All hydrology requires risks. Building fog nets require overhead investment and they may not provide as much water as expected.” But he said it is a bigger risk to not invest in alternative water sources. “Using subsoil resources without letting them recharge is like taking money out of a bank without ever depositing more money.

“Cape Verde has some zones that offer optimal [fog] conditions – some of the best in the world. The areas are small, but these small areas have enormous potential.” The engineer said Cape Verde’s more than 1,000 hectares of land is sufficiently foggy to produce billions of litres of affordable clean water per year.

Currently Serra Malagueta is the only community doing fog-harvesting.

Starting in November, Saharan desert winds from northern Africa blow dust onto the nets, making it harder to ensure water quality. Sabino said it is important during this period to change the filters, clean the nets and check water quality.

Also, there is not year-round fog in Cape Verde, which markets itself as a sunny tourist destination. “Nets should be built with sufficiently large dimensions to produce enough water to accommodate these periods,” advised Sabino.

For more info on fog harvesting see the FogQuest web site. In 2010 the 5th International Conference on Fog, Fog Collection and Dew will be held in Münster, Germany.

Source: IRIN,: 09 Jan 2009

Waste recycling: Motorola unveils first mobile phone made with recycled plastic water bottles

MOTO W233 Renew. Photo: Motorola

With the launch of MOTO W233 Renew, Motorola says it has the world’s first carbon neutral phone. The plastic housing is made from plastics comprised of recycled water bottles. “Through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation. The phone has earned Carbonfund.org’s CarbonFree® Product Certification”, Motorola said in its press release of 06 Jan 2009.

Motorola says it has reduced size of packaging, made of recycled paper, by 22 percent, and that it provides a postage-paid recycling envelope.

Commenting on the introduction of Renew in his blog, Professor Noah Hall notes: “This is great, but don’t feel like you need to rush out and buy bottled water to keep Motorola supplied with recycled plastic.  With over 8 billion gallons of bottled water sold in the U.S. annually, we should have enough recycled plastic from water bottles to give us a lifetime of cell phones”.

Solar disinfection: inventor unveils solar-powered water purifier

Photo: Solvatten

Swedish inventor, Petra Wadström, has unveiled Solvatten, a solar-powered water purifier, that she hopes will be used to provide household drinking water in developing countries.

Developed over a period of eleven years, the device resembles a standard jerrycan. It can be filled with up to 10 litres of water, opened out and left in the sun. A simple indicator uses a red or green face to show users when the temperature has reached 55°C and the water is safe to drink. It uses both thermal energy (heat) and UV radiation from sunlight, a created turbulence and a filter to treat water of up to 200 NTU. Water samples with more than 200.000 E. coli/100 ml have successfully been treated, the Solvatten web site claims.

Serving a family of five, a Solvatten device costs US$ 35 and lasts 5 years or more. The estimated cost per litre of water is 0.002 USD ( based upon 10 litres of water treated, 300 days per year).

The Solvatten company has already tested its device in Kenya and Nepal. In 2009 the first units of Solvatten will reach Nepal for a user study involving a number of families, schools and health centres. The programme is being implemented in collaboration with UN-HABITAT and ENPHO, the Environment and Public Health Organisation.

The Solvatten can also be used a solar water heater to produce hot water.

See videos below on Solvatten trials in Nepal and a product presentation by Petra Wadström.

Source: edie, 12 Jan 2009 : Solvatten web site

Terafil water filters: clay filters promise clean drinking water in villages in Jharkand, India

Terafil technology will not only ensure clean drinking water in villages but also turn the rural people into entrepreneurs.

Chakdoha and Chapri, two villages of Ghatshila in East Singhbhum district [of Jharkand state, India], will play host to the pilot project.

The initiative has been taken by the Rural Development Trust under the Art of Living Foundation, Bengaluru. Terafil water filters have been designed by S.K. Kuntia, the head of design and rural technology department at the Institute of Mineral and Material Technology (IMMT), Bhubaneswar, a wing of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi.

[...] The terafil would cost around Rs 350 to Rs 500. The foundation has planned to rope in the corporate sector to help donate the filters as a part of their corporate social responsibility.

The filters would encourage self-employment, too. The foundation would also arrange for resources to train the villagers and help them turn into entrepreneurs.

[...] The filters are being manufactured and would be distributed across the two villages from March 31 [2009].

Source: The Telegraph, 23 Dec 2008

The Terafil water filter is especially suited for water that is rich in sediments, suspended particles, iron and certain microorganisms, i.e. for areas where water from both surface & ground water sources like dug wells, ponds, tube wells and rivers is used for drinking water.

Terafil (red clay) filtration disc. Photo: IMMT

Terafil is a burnt red clay porous media [...] produced from mixture of red clay (silt clay), river sand and wood saw dust, without using chemicals. The dough of the mixture of these materials is sintered at high temperature in a low cost coal / wood fired furnace to make the terracotta disc porous.

About 99% of turbidity, 90-95% of micro-organisms, 80-95% of soluble iron,

Domestic Terafil filter. Photo: IMMT

colours etc. are effectively removed from the raw water during filtration process through the Terafil. 100% bacteria can be removed when a pinch (0.01 gm) of bleaching powder is added to a liter of filtered water. Rate of filtration is dependent upon turbidity and pressure of raw water over the Terafil.

Terafil filters are available for both domestic use and community-level use (gravity flow and on-line pressure flow models).

Read more technical specifications here (IMMT brochure, May 2008).

In 2007, IMMT had already licensed the technology for making and marketing Terafil discs to four parties in Orissa and had demonstrated the technology in several other states including Uttar Pradesh and Meghalaya. Over 50,000 water filters had been distributed. The domestic Terafil filter was used extensively in Orissa in 1999 when the state was severely hit by a cyclone.

Contact: S. Khuntia, Head, Design & Rural Technology, Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, P.O. RRL, Bhubaneswar – 751013, India.  Tel (off) : 0674 2581635-39, Fax: 0674 2581637, 2581160. Email: khuntias [at] gmail.com, skhuntia [at] immt.res.in

Source: CSIR news, Oct 2007

Kanchan Arsenic Filter: verification update

Field testing of the Kanchan Arsenic Filter (KAF), a biosand filter modified to remove arsenic from contaminated raw water, is generating encouraging results in Cambodia and Bangladesh.

The KAF was found to be highly effective in Phase 1 testing, with average arsenic removals in the 95 to 97 per cent range. All of the 10 test filters consistently reduced levels from an average of 637ppb to less than 50ppb, which is the Cambodian standard for arsenic in drinking water.

Performance of the filters was consistent over the 30-week testing span, which produced 8,400 litres of filtered water.

Phase 2 testing, now underway, involves installing the filters in more challenging locations to determine if their arsenic removal capacity can be exhausted.

The tests will also examine hardness and pH levels, water usage patterns and include a social assessment.

Related news: Arsenic removal: field testing the Kanchan Arsenic Filter in Cambodia, Source Weekly, 22 Mar 2008

See also:

• MIT TechTV video “Arsenic Poisoning and the Kanchan Arsenic Filter”  here
• Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST): Adapting the Biosand Filter for Arsenic Removal (10 Apr 2008)

Source: CAWST Newsletter [not yet online, but should become available here], Winter 2008

Arsenic removal: four years of development and field-testing of IHE arsenic removal family filter in rural Bangladesh

Petrusevski, B. … [et al.] (2008). Four years of development and field-testing of IHE arsenic removal family filter in rural Bangladesh. Water science and  technology : vol. 58, no. 1 ; p. 53-58. doi:10.2166/wst.2008.335

Abstract

UNESCO-IHE has been developing an arsenic removal family filter with a capacity of 100 L/day based on arsenic adsorption onto iron oxide coated sand, a by-product of iron removal plants. The longer term and field conditions performance of the third generation of eleven family filters prototypes were tested in rural Bangladesh for 30 months. All filters achieved initially highly effective arsenic removal irrespective of arsenic concentration and groundwater composition. Arsenic level in filtrate reached 10 mug/l after 50 days of operation at one testing site and after 18 months of continuous operation at other 3 testing sites. Arsenic level at other 7 sites remained below the WHO guideline value till the end of study. Positive correlation was found between arsenic removal capacity of the filter and iron concentration in groundwater. In addition to arsenic, iron present in groundwater at all testing sites was also removed highly effectively. Manganese removal with IHE family filter was effective only when treating groundwater with low ammonia. A simple polishing sand filter, after IHE family filter, resulted in consistent and effective removal of manganese. IHE family filters were easy to operate and were well accepted by the local population.

Contact: Dr. Branislav Petrusevski, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands, b.petrusevski [at] unesco-ihe.org

Plumbing: US groups join in water efficiency research

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hosted a January 6, 2009, memorandum of understanding (MOU) signing ceremony for five national organizations that have joined forces to do further research into water efficiency in plumbing, according to the Web site of the Chicago-based Alliance for Water Efficiency, the organization leading the partnership, that further consisted of:

• International Code Council
• International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO)
• Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling Contractors Association
• Plumbing Manufacturers Institute.

The organizations pledged to develop research programs to assist in the development and use of water-efficient plumbing. The research will cover efficient and sustainable products, systems and practices, including:

• high-efficiency toilet drainage
• water reuse systems
• non-water consuming urinals, and 
• sizing of water-efficient plumbing systems

Source: Water Technology Online, 06 Jan 2009

Biogas: DMT Mobile Toilets, Nigeria, to produce gas from human waste

DMT Mobile Toilet's motto

DMT Mobile Toilets, has unveiled a programme [to] generate at least 35 per cent gas for domestic use and electricity from human and animal waste for the Lagos mega city project [in 2009]. The mega city project is jointly being promoted by the Federal Government, Lagos and Ogun State governments.

According to the Chairman of DMT Mobile Toilets, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, the biogas plant is designed to process and convert sanitation waste into cooking gas and other gases that could be used to generate electricity at its site on the Lagos-Ibadan Experssway.

[...] The plant, which was developed with technical assistance from DMT‘s foreign partner, Environmental Resource Management Foundation, will commence production in 2009. [R]aw materials for the plant would be sourced from DMT’s mobile toilets, abattoirs and septic tanks.

[T]he plant would power a housing estate near it on an experimental basis.

Former bodyguard, DMT founder Isaac Durojaiye

[DMT plans to introduce] six new designs [...] within the first quarter of 2009 that will incorporate overhead 300-litre tanks, solar lighting and air freshener dispensers. Plastic will also replace ceramic toilet fittings to prevent breakages and to act as an added safety measure, especially in schools.

[DMT runs a] Basic Toilet for Schools Scheme through which schools [are] offered mobile toilets at special discounts. The company had earlier donated 100 toilets to public schools in Lagos and Ogun states.

DMT stands for Dignified Mobile Toilets.  At the beginning of 2008, DMT founder and Managing Director, Isaac Durojaiye, was one of five Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows, who were recognised for developing innovative sanitation business models.

See a Sept 2008 Reuters video on DMT here.

Source: Akinpelu Dada, The Punch, 22 Dec 2008