ABSTRACT

Safe drinking water is the basic need of human beings and according to the forecasts, the
sources of fresh water will extinct in near future. The water crisis will affect millions worldwide
and it is expected to worsen over the coming years. Efforts are made worldwide for purifying
water so that every individual across the world will get pure water for drinking. Low cost water
treatment devices for rural households like filters, reverse osmosis (RO) and ultraviolet (UV)
based water purifiers are developed by many industries but these devices suffer from problems
like filter clogging, periodic replacement of filters, wastage of water (in case of RO) and
unavailability of electricity in rural areas making them costlier. Other drawback of RO, UV water
purifiers is that it removes natural minerals which are essential to the human body causing a
mineral deficiency in the body and making water de-mineralized and tasteless. RO water purifier
are costlier compared to counterpart water purifiers as UV and RO water purifier consumes
much more electricity. Dissolved Chlorine in water can damage RO membrane. Due to all above
reason RO, UV purifier are not affordable to rural areas.

The objective of our project is to deal with the recent improvisation in filter design and
remove the flaws in existing filtration models at economical level. The study deals with the
purification of water using naturally available material without changing the required parameters
of water using copper mesh as a disinfectant. The main aim of the study is to provide effective
and economical water purifier for rural area. Earthen pot are used for the purification of water
made from different proportions of Clay and Saw dust. Lake and well water was treated as it is
normally used in rural areas. Various drinking water test were carried on samples before and
after the treatment of water and the results showed that the filters were capable to treat water as
per the drinking water standards. As copper was used as a disinfectant, no trace of E-coli was
found in the treated water. The results showed that Pot Filter can be effectively used as a low
cost filtration device in rural areas.

Keywords: - Pot filter, Economical, Effective, Reverse Osmosis, Ultraviolet, Rural areas.