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Development of Ceramic Filters for Household Water Treatment in Nigeria

Ceramic water filtration is the process that makes use of a porous ceramic (fired clay) medium to filter microbes or other contaminants from water. Ceramic water filtration has been greatly improved upon such that it takes care of most microbial contamination in water. However, the ceramic filter is not known to treat chemical contaminants in water. Therefore this project was aimed at developing a ceramic filter that could treat certain chemical contamination in water at the household level. Porous ceramic bodies were formulated and constituted from various materials such as kaolin, laterite, bonechar and charcoal. Bone char was added as a defluoridation agent while the charcoal doubled as the pore-creating combustible material and as an Activated Carbon media in the ceramic body for the adsorption of metals from water. The formulated ceramic bodies were shaped into filters (pot) using the slip casting technique and fired bisque (850˚C - 900˚C). The developed filter samples were subjected to physical properties tests, while analysis on the microbial and physio-chemical parameters of the filter-treated water samples were compared vis-à-vis the raw water samples. The results indicate that the developed filters were effective in the treatment of chemical contaminants detected in the raw water samples; with significant reductions in fluoride, lead, and sulphate levels amongst others. The resulting filter samples also showed viability in physical handling strength and flow rate; while the availability of the raw materials and the processing technique used, makes a good economic case for the production of the developed filters.

Article by Ebele Erhuanga,et al,from The Federal University of Technology, Nigeria

Full access: http://mrw.so/3ltyLt
Image by lanlangcorp,from Flickr-cc.



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