The BioAusable team will design and construct small pre-filters to be used in conjunction with a biosand filter to provide clean, potable water ( up to 20 gallons a day) to individual households in developing countries. The pre-filters will protect the main bio-sand filter from silt build-up and will provide the first stage for pathogen removal. They will employ flood-drain technology to increase still water contact time with the sand. The pre-filters will be constructed from locally available recycled materials and will be little or no cost. Assembly of the Bio sand filter and pre-filters will take no more than one day to accomplish. (updated 4/1/12)
Showing posts with label WHAT'S NEW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WHAT'S NEW. Show all posts
Jan 30, 2014
Matthew and I discussed the
filters and where to put the plant. At first, we were thinking of putting it on
the top of the structure, but then we would have to drill holes in the ceiling
and hang the light like that or put the light across the structure. The light
would keep the plant alive, but would block the bucket and we wouldn’t be able
to pour water into our system. We decided
to put the plant into the 55 Gallon drum and put the light across there.
We don’t need to pour the water into the 55 Gallon drum, so that will work very
well. Matthew will run it by our professors to make sure that can be doable. He
also suggested to let our contaminated water sit for a few days so the nitrates
can form. Right now, there is only ammonia in the water. The nitrates, if there
are any, would be in the 55 Gallon drum in the Biofilm layer.
Alex
Jan 6, 2013
I went over to the LaRows' and did the water filters. The pump in the barn works, so we can go back to using the pump water. I also glued the upper Tantalus on filter c. (The third filter)
Jan 1, 2014
I went to dump water into the filters. Mom got the 3rd filter up and running, but the first tantalus is leaking. It needs the glue stuff. We will fill the bottom for now. I got 2 Gallons of water from the house. I had to carry one at a time as the small bucket didn't have a handle. The ice was treacherous. I made sure to put manure in the water.
Alex
Alex
November 30,2013 (How to Build the Filters by Alex)
How to build the filters
Note: This is how to build a 2
tiered system.
Needed: 8 five gallon buckets for
each cascading system (4 buckets for each individual filter)
Make a hole 2 inches from the
bottom on one 5 gallon bucket, this is the bottom bucket.
Drill a hole in a cap and place
PVC pipe screw piece through the hole. Put a rubber washer on the screw piece.
You then place a elbow( threaded on one side) on the screw part sticking out of
the hole. A straight piece of PVC piping connects this to another screw piece
that has the thread part sticking out of the hole on the side of the bucket
After placing the PVC contraption
in the bucket, place 2 inches of gravel in the bucket. It must be enough to
cover the PVC contraption.
Drill small holes on the bottom
of 3 five gallon buckets
Place a screen the size of the
top of the bucket in 2 of these drilled buckets.
Place a circle of clear, plastic pipe, connected by a pipe connector, on top of the screen to hold it down. Pour 4 inches of pea gravel in one
of the buckets.
For the next one, place a circle of clear,
flexible pipe, connected together by a pipe connector, (the size of the bucket
rim) on top of the screen to keep it from getting pulled up. You then place 3
inches of red sand in the bucket.
(Note: For the water filters, you
place red sand into the sand bucket. The whey cascading filters have 3 inches of black
sand in the buckets and 8 inches of Wollastonite in the other whey buckets)
Place the final bucket on top of
the sand bucket for a catch bucket.
Repeat this process for the
second 4 bucket system, the catch buckets is in both filters.
You now have a 2 tiered system!
November 26, 2013
Matthew and I built the second
tried system for the water filters. We also made a list for what we needed for
the other bucket systems. I found out that it is really 3 in of red sand in the
water filters. In the whey, we have 3 ½ in of black sand in one bucket and 7 in
of wollastonite in the second whey bucket. The whey filters still must be
completed as well as the third system for the water. We did good today!
Alex
November 21, 2013
We had a meeting with Karen Shultz. She described a structure that was being used in the Philippines to clean water. It is a system of trays with plants in some of the trays. She also gave us a list of plants that were used to aid in cleaning the water. She told us that floating leaf plants would be more beneficial to our filter.
At home, I found a site that gave a list of floating leaf plants:
At home, I found a site that gave a list of floating leaf plants:
It is a website for an aquarium store based in Alabama. I am sure that they have out of state orders and the plants are legal to transport. We could also see if we have the plants here.
Alex
What we did on Nov 15, 2013
At the
LaRows, we first poured 35 1\2 gallons of Wollastonite into the 55 Gallon drum.
As Matthew and Andrew poured, I washed out the empty buckets. Andrew drilled
holes into the bottom of 6 of the buckets and Matthew drilled a hole into 2 of
the buckets 2 in from the bottom.
We made the cap system for the 2 buckets with the side
hole. This consists of the cap with a hole drilled close to the side. You then place a ‘screw’ through the hole with the threads sticking out. The ‘screw’ has the black rubber
washer in it. We only had one, so one bucket has the washer in it. We then
placed 2in of gravel into these buckets, enough to cover the cap system. The 6 buckets
with holes on the bottom has a screen mesh the size of the top of the bucket
plus a little more as there is a ring of plastic tubing 29in long with a pipe
connector attaching the two ends. This tube goes in the bucket to hold the
screen down. In two of the buckets have 4in of pea gravel and two of them will have 7in of red sand. We
only had enough for one bucket, so we will have to get more red sand before, we
can finish. We didn't place the Tantalus on as we didn't have time and I was
told that the Tantalus doesn't work. I say they will work, just turn them a bit
till the water pours out.Alex
November 12,2013
Mom, Melissa, Stella, and I met today and did some work. We built the second biosand filter for the first water filter. Now all that's left is to built two more 4 bucket systems and we will have another filter. We also built the second whey filter that has the Wollastonite in it. Very productive day!
Alex
Alex
November 11, 2013 Task List for members Author: Alex
Here is the task diagram for the team. How does it look?
Alex- Project Manager
Matthew
Harrison Andrew Stella
Writer Finance + Testing Audio/ Visual
Accusition
General Support- Liam, Sullivan, Vienna
November 7, 2013
We met and did a few things. We
organized our stuff and placed it in one area We are using one of the stalls in
the barn. We looked at the testing kit better and Sullivan built the structure
for the whey filters. We took innovatory on the buckets we have. Matthew did
writing at home, but came to get buckets to gather wolastonite.
Alex
November 6, 2013
We held a BioAusable administrative meeting with Professor Larkin from SUNY Plattsburgh. Professor Larkin outlined the steps we have to take in order to compete effectively at the Ying TRSEF science fair this spring. We showed her our filters and discussed how best to optimize them for texting. Thank you, Professor Larkin!
Alex
11/06/13 Meeting Notes
We met with Professor Larkin this week, who spoke to us on a wide variety of topics, including testing, preparation for the science fair, and our filter design. Although I will cover every topic in detail in a separate, longer blog post, I thought I should post the weekly meeting notes anyway.
- We discussed testing contaminated water. We decided that the ideal water for us to test for E. coli and other organisms would be water contaminated by surface runoff from a dairy farm near our project's site. Such water will be high in E. coli and coliform, and will prove far more effective in testing then our other options.
- We began construction on the wooden frame needed to support our filtration system. Within two meetings this should be complete (UPDATE: As of this writing, it is now finished).
- Ideally, we should have begun testing about a month ago. As is, we're running low on time before winter arrives.
That's all for Meeting Notes this week. I'll write a longer, more detailed post about our meeting tomorrow or Monday.
Matthew
The Wollastonite Has Arrived
The title says all. We picked up about about 20 buckets of Wollastonite yesterday afternoon and unloaded it at the lab this morning. Wollastonite (CaSiO3) will form the core of our Greek Yogurt Whey pre-filtration system, so it is particularly fortunate that we've acquired it at this early stage in our testing.
Just a couple of notes:
-We will be meeting with Professor Larkin this Wednesday to continue the testing process and discuss preparation for the science fairs. However, I find it advisable that we hold another building meeting, maybe earlier in the week, to begin assembling the Whey pre-filters. Thoughts?
- Special shout-out to Sullivan from the team for his amazing work last week at our construction meeting. While not even an official member of the team, his assistance in constructing the frame to hold our filtration system proved invaluable. Thanks Sul!
Just a couple of notes:
-We will be meeting with Professor Larkin this Wednesday to continue the testing process and discuss preparation for the science fairs. However, I find it advisable that we hold another building meeting, maybe earlier in the week, to begin assembling the Whey pre-filters. Thoughts?
- Special shout-out to Sullivan from the team for his amazing work last week at our construction meeting. While not even an official member of the team, his assistance in constructing the frame to hold our filtration system proved invaluable. Thanks Sul!
10/03/13 Meeting Notes
Had a great discussion with a representative from the Department of Health. During our two-hour meeting we discussed our filter, the design, and how it compares to traditional methods of slow sand filtration. We discussed the overall effectiveness of bio-sand filters removing contaminants from water, alternate filtration systems, and contaminants in the water found in the Philippines.
We determined several things from the meeting, the most notable being that we need to determine the filter's flow rate. The flow rate must be correct for proper filtration. The optimal flow rates are unknown currently, but are dependent on the medium used.
We also discussed the problem of nitrates in drinking water in the Philippines. Nitrates come from sewage, and are a major problem as they cannot be filtered out with either our bio-sand filter or our Cascading pre-filter system. Nitrates can be treated through certain ultraviolet light systems, but such systems are expensive and not easy to replicate with our materials.
We discussed other ways to treat for nitrates, and learned that plants can drink the nitrogen compound in the water. We reasoned that we could utilize a locally available, economically useful plant in the Philippines (if we could find one) and implement it into our Cascading filter as an additional stage of pre-treatment. While this is currently still theoretical, it definitely merits further discussion.
Also discussed were testing our water, where the team can find a contaminated source of water, and if we can purposefully contaminate water with bacteria such as E. coli in order to test our filter system's effectiveness on truly contaminated water.
That's all for now. We are possibly meeting this weekend to build a couple more whey pre-filters, but this is dependent on several team member's schedules.
-Matt
We determined several things from the meeting, the most notable being that we need to determine the filter's flow rate. The flow rate must be correct for proper filtration. The optimal flow rates are unknown currently, but are dependent on the medium used.
We also discussed the problem of nitrates in drinking water in the Philippines. Nitrates come from sewage, and are a major problem as they cannot be filtered out with either our bio-sand filter or our Cascading pre-filter system. Nitrates can be treated through certain ultraviolet light systems, but such systems are expensive and not easy to replicate with our materials.
We discussed other ways to treat for nitrates, and learned that plants can drink the nitrogen compound in the water. We reasoned that we could utilize a locally available, economically useful plant in the Philippines (if we could find one) and implement it into our Cascading filter as an additional stage of pre-treatment. While this is currently still theoretical, it definitely merits further discussion.
Also discussed were testing our water, where the team can find a contaminated source of water, and if we can purposefully contaminate water with bacteria such as E. coli in order to test our filter system's effectiveness on truly contaminated water.
That's all for now. We are possibly meeting this weekend to build a couple more whey pre-filters, but this is dependent on several team member's schedules.
-Matt
9/21/13 Meeting Notes
Just a few notes from last meeting:
-Finished construction on the two whey Cascading Pre-filters.
-Tested Cascading pre-filters for overall effectiveness, obtained inconclusive results. Glued Tantalus together so that trapped air won't leak from the Tantalus while the filter is running.
-Finished assembly of experimental mini bio-sand filter. Currently plugged, even after I took it apart and rebuilt it.
-Filter schedule for October is the same as the schedule for September. I will note any further changes to the schedule on the blog.
-Finished construction on the two whey Cascading Pre-filters.
-Tested Cascading pre-filters for overall effectiveness, obtained inconclusive results. Glued Tantalus together so that trapped air won't leak from the Tantalus while the filter is running.
-Finished assembly of experimental mini bio-sand filter. Currently plugged, even after I took it apart and rebuilt it.
-Filter schedule for October is the same as the schedule for September. I will note any further changes to the schedule on the blog.
September 8th Meeting Wrap-Up
Just some quick notes left over from yesterday's meeting that weren't brought up:
-Since I will be feeding the filter Tuesday and Thursday, I will finish construction on the second half finished pre-filter that we started yesterday.
-We are planning to work with a cheese-maker in Keeseville, who will be providing us with whey for the pre-filter. It is important to get this part of the project underway as quickly as possible because the project will be stored outside, and whey will freeze in cold temperatures.
-We will be needing more pre-filters to test the whey, as well as for further water testing. I plan to start constructing these tomorrow at my house, and will provide a progress update on this at the next meeting.
That's all for now. Until next week,
Matthew
-Since I will be feeding the filter Tuesday and Thursday, I will finish construction on the second half finished pre-filter that we started yesterday.
-We are planning to work with a cheese-maker in Keeseville, who will be providing us with whey for the pre-filter. It is important to get this part of the project underway as quickly as possible because the project will be stored outside, and whey will freeze in cold temperatures.
-We will be needing more pre-filters to test the whey, as well as for further water testing. I plan to start constructing these tomorrow at my house, and will provide a progress update on this at the next meeting.
That's all for now. Until next week,
Matthew
New Site Layout & Design
Hello. Just giving everyone who reads this a quick status update. Since our last major blog updates, the BioAusable team has experienced a whole year of exciting new events. Now, with the 2013-14 year approaching, bringing both new members and new challenges for the team to face, we have decided that the blog could do with some layout and design updates.
Most of these changes are aesthetic in nature, such as the new blue skin and the updating/archiving of old or obsolete blog sections. We are also planning to update the "Home" page, to make the aims of the project more clear immediately and to improve site navigation. Most of these changes will slowly be rolled out over the next few days.
Any feedback/suggestions from blog readers and team members on the progress and look of the updated blog at this stage is appreciated.
~Matthew
Most of these changes are aesthetic in nature, such as the new blue skin and the updating/archiving of old or obsolete blog sections. We are also planning to update the "Home" page, to make the aims of the project more clear immediately and to improve site navigation. Most of these changes will slowly be rolled out over the next few days.
Any feedback/suggestions from blog readers and team members on the progress and look of the updated blog at this stage is appreciated.
~Matthew
Current Filter Schedule
For reference, here is September's schedule for filling the filter.
----
Sunday: Andrew
Monday: Stella
Tuesday: Matthew
Wednesday: Alex
Thursday: Matthew
Friday: Stella
Saturday: Andrew
----
While unlikely, note this is subject to change based on the schedules of team members. I will update this list if anything changes.
~Matthew
----
Sunday: Andrew
Monday: Stella
Tuesday: Matthew
Wednesday: Alex
Thursday: Matthew
Friday: Stella
Saturday: Andrew
----
While unlikely, note this is subject to change based on the schedules of team members. I will update this list if anything changes.
~Matthew
BioAusable Mentioned in Valley News
Local 4-H youth compete in national STEM program event
Westport — On June 14, three 4-H youth and their coaches of the Essex-Clinton County 4-H Bio-Au Sable STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) team competed with some of the most brilliant young minds in the country.
The competition took place in Portland, Ore. for the coveted Stockholm Junior Water Prize. Matt Caito (Jay), Alexandra Rock (Keeseville) and Harrison Kyle (Hemingford, Que.) represented their team. They were accompanied by their coach, Matt Cauthorn (Keeseville) and chaperone Greg Caito (Jay) against competitors from 48 states and U.S. territories. Their goal was to capture the $10,000 monetary award as well as the opportunity to present their water quality project findings to an acclaimed international panel of scientific judges in Stockholm, Sweden.
Although they did not win the competition, they were honored to present their finding against such high caliber teams from across the U.S.
This 4-H club is no stranger to fierce competition. In order to earn the honor to represent New York State, the team competed in and won the Ying Tri Regional Science Fair in Syracuse. The Ying Tri Regional Science Fair was designed specifically for those New York students whose own regions did not host a regionally sanctioned science competition. Without this opportunity, many rural New York students would be locked out of higher level science competitions that require a win at a Regional Science Fair to qualify for other academic fairs such as the prestigious Intel Science Fair that is held in Maryland.
Last year, the team was invited to compete as part of the InVenTeam at M.I.T. The 4-H STEM Club was awarded the prestigious Lemelson award, a $10,000 prize to continue their work on bio filters to clean and purify water. This was the first time a 4-H club was invited to compete at the InVenTeam. In the past it has been magnet and charter schools whose academic focus was math, science, technology, and engineering. The club continues to expand their previous experiment on refinements on their original project.
Read full article: http://www.valleynewsadk.com/news/2013/aug/01/local-4-h-youth-compete-national-stem-program-even/
Read full article: http://www.valleynewsadk.com/news/2013/aug/01/local-4-h-youth-compete-national-stem-program-even/
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