Design and construction of a modular water disinfection system2

Abstract

As the world population increases and the number of people who lack access to clean safe water grows, a growing concern on people’s livelihood and safety from water-borne diseases emerges. Statistics shows that more than 80% of Ugandans do not have sufficient sanitation facilities. More to that, about 50% in Kampala are not connected on the national pipe-water network, thus they use other water sources such as boreholes, springs and lakes. These water sources provide water of a low safety quality because of cross contamination with other wastes and hence poses a threat to the communities that use them. The major problem identified by this project is that water sources are continuously being contaminated with different undesired harmful materials resulting from industrial, agricultural and human practices. This has resulted into various communities and individuals performing water purification at household level, a practice that might not be sufficient and sustainable. It is against this background that a water purification system employing activated carbon as the filter was designed and fabricated to improve water safety. The methods employed in this project were collection of data (through interviews with communities and subject matter experts like water engineers), online search for literature and developments about water disinfection, analysis of the collected data, conceptual design of the system, 3D modelling of the proposed concept and prototyping the final design concept selected. The key findings of the study were that ground water sources such as boreholes and unprotected spring wells contain undesirable contaminants which are more pronounced in rainy seasons. The system prototype fabricated however was tested and found efficient in removing the total dissolved solid (TDS) and total suspended solid (TSS) contaminants by over 80% efficiency thus feasible. It is therefore recommended that the governments, NGOs and aid rendering international organization to look into this design and improve or modify it such that it can be availed to communities in developing countries to improve on their portable water safety.