Drops of life

Design team members: Jamie David and Shawn Yuan

Supervisor: Douglas Sparkes, BEng, MASc, PhD

Background

Water is one of the basic necessities of life. It is used every day for drinking, cleaning, cooking, and is an important resource to many different industries such as agriculture, animal husbandry, manufacturing and power generation. It is vital not only for the preservation of natural ecosystems, but also for sustainable development and the alleviation of poverty and hunger. [1] As essential as it is, however, much of the present world is deprived of clean drinking water

billion people unserved globally pie chart

Figure 1: Population (in millions) without access to clean drinking water by region in 2004. [2]

In developing countries, about 90% of sewage and 70% of industrial wastes are discharged into water courses without treatment, often polluting the usable water supply. [1] The consumption of polluted drinking water from such water sources causes approximately 5 million deaths a year, over 30% of which are of children under the age of 5 years. [2] Diarrhea and malaria, both water-related diseases, ranked 3rd and 4th in the top causes of death among children under 5 years old in developing countries. [3]

Project description and objectives

Drops of Life is a project that is aimed at designing and implementing a customizable, modular water treatment system with various possible assemblies that can meet the diverse clean water needs of different communities. Specifically, impoverished communities in the Philippines and the African continent are the main markets being designed for because these locations have the greatest need for potable water. Furthermore, it is the goal of Drops of Life to promote the final design developed to government and charity organizations to gain funding for its implementations.

Design methodology

1. Definition of limiting factors and community scenarios

A standard set of limiting factors were determined. These limiting factors refer to the accessibility and quality of different resources, such as availability of electricity, amount of funding, and quality of water in existing third-world communities. These factors constrain the feasible types of the individual parts and assembly variations that can be used in the system. Moreover, they determine the types of community scenarios that are being designed for. A general set of community scenarios that the system can accommodate have been determined by systematically improving the value of one of the limiting factors. These scenarios will determine the different types of ways the system can be installed on site. The basic system assembly will accommodate the requirements and constraints of the worst-case community scenario. The worst-case scenario will consist of having all the limiting factors set at their worst levels.

2. Design requirements and constraints

The design requirements and constraints for the system were developed based on the project objectives and the values of the limiting factors for the worst case scenario.

  • The system will provide clean, potable water.
  • It will be able to treat water with coliform bacteria, leachate, domestic waste, dissolved solids, DO levels less than 5 mg/L, and BOD levels greater than 10mg/L.
  • It will have a throughput to meet the needs of a community of at least 100 households.
  • The output water quality will meet the safe water drinking standards of Health Canada as outlined in the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality [4].
  • The system will adhere to the general water safety guidelines of the World Health Organization [5].
  • It will be maintainable by the community and capable of remote control and monitoring.
  • It will use existing water filtration technology and can be incorporated into existing water distribution system (i.e. piping networks and sewage systems).
  • It will be technologically feasible and marketable to different government and charity organizations, as well as, the private sector. The system will also adhere to the boundary conditions set by the design constraints.
  • The most basic assembly design of the system will cost no more than US $10000.
  • It will be able to function without internet access.
  • It will be capable of incorporating a Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system module for remote control and monitoring

3. Research

Research was conducted to determine the appropriate values for the limiting factors. Charities in the Philippines were contacted to determine the amount of funding that they would be willing to provide for such a system. Contacts in the Philippines were also used to obtain water quality test results. Online resources have also provided some general information on the water quality and availability of electricity and telecommunications networks in the Philippines and Africa. Due to the unavailability of water quality data from all regions of the Philippines and Africa, generalizations had to be made about the representativeness of available data. It is acknowledged that water quality in other regions of the Philippines and Africa may be worse than indicated in the worst-case community scenario. Research was conducted on existing technology and systems. A number of wastewater and drinking water treatment processes and technologies were discovered. Furthermore, the necessary components of the basic system assembly were determined.

4. Design and analysis

The different water treatment technologies will be evaluated based on their ability to satisfy water quality and throughput design requirements. Design assemblies will then be developed with components that utilize the optimal technologies. These assemblies will then be evaluated on their feasibility and ability to meet the design requirements and criteria, financial viability, and anticipated market response.

5. Testing

To ensure that the system can be fully integrated in the community, surveys will be conducted with local community members to determine if the system truly is viable in the real-world environment.

6. Promotion

A presentation for the final modular water treatment design and set of possible assemblies will be made. The presentation will delineate the entire design process. It will emphasize the technological feasibility of the system, the financial viability and the expected market response, to illicit interest from governments and charities for funding for the system's implementation.

References

[1] Water for Life. Factsheet on Water and Sanitation. October 1, 2008. http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/factsheet.html

[2] World Health Organization and UNICEF 2006. Meeting the MDG Drinking Water and Sanitation Target. September 30, 2008. http://www.wssinfo.org/pdf/JMP_06.pdf .

[3] World Health Organization and UNICEF 2005. Water for Life. October 1, 2008. http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/waterforlife.pdf

[4] Health Canada 2008. Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality. November 2, 2008. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/alt_formats/hecs-sesc/pdf/pubs/water-eau/sum_guide-res_recom/summary-sommaire-eng.pdf

[5] World Health Organization. Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality. November 2, 2008 . http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/gdwq0506.pdf