CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION AND IT’S SCOPE

Rationale

Water wizard,Victor Schouberger once said ‘It is important for human

beings and animals to drink healthy water. Chemically purified water,
chlorinated or ozonated water is no longer living and healthy water. Good
water, full of life and rich in energy, is synonymous with strong and healthy
life. ’’According to the dictionary, water is a substance composed of the
chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen and existing in gaseous liquid, and
solid states. It is one of the most plentiful and essential of compounds. Water
is essential part of our daily lives. We use water to sustain our basic need
such as in drinking, bathing, cleaning, cooking and in washing our clothes.
Food and shelter are crucial for living, but nobody can survive for very long
without water .According to science, human can survive a month without food
but can’t survive a week without water. That’s why, since the beginning of
history, civilizations have lived near abundant source of H 2O.But it’s not
enough just to have a plenty of it. The same water that gives life can also
make people sick or even kill them, if it contains dangerous substances or
disease-causing microbes. And since people use water for activities such as
irrigating crops, washing and waste disposal, sources of water close to human
population can easily become contaminated. As a result, humans have been
trying to purity water for thousands of years. As far backs as 1500B.C.,
Egyptians used the chemical alum to filter suspended sediment out of their
drinking water. But it wasn’t until the late 1800s and early 1900s that scientist
figured out that microbes caused illnesses and that water could be treated
with chlorine or ozone to eliminate them. While the water that cause out of
taps in most countries now is clean and safe, about 11 percent of the world’s
population 783 million people still doesn’t have access to portable water,
according to a 2012 United Nation Study.

Philippines has a long history of water production. The Metropolitan

Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) holds the distinction of being one
of the oldest the most formidable government organization in the Philippines.
It’s roots were traced to the first water system laid out in old manila in 1878
from funds donated by Spanish philanthropist Francisco Carriedo y Peredo.
The Carriedo System had evolved from the Manila Water Supply System in
1908 to Metropolitan Water District in 1919. Thirty-five years later, it became
the National Waterworks and Sewerage Authority (NAWASA).In
1997,Maynilad Water Service, Inc. (Maynilad) was formed .It is a agent and
contractor of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS).It
was created to provide water waste water service in the west zone of
Metropolitan Manila. In march 22,2004,the Philippines enacted the Republic
Act (R.A) No.9275 or the Philippines Clean Water Act of 2004 and was signed
by former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. It is an act providing for a
comprehensive water quality management and for other purposes. This act
provides for the abatement and control of pollution from land based sources,
and lays down water quality standards and regulation.

To answer the call of the society for clean renewable water, the
researchers decided to explore the possibility of making an alternative water
filters through the use of sand, charcoal and stone. This simple machine aims
to convert wastewater to clean water through the sand, charcoal and stone it
will be converted into renewable source of water. It would also be possible
that the researchers will employ the use of mosquito net to increase the level
of filtration.

Review of Related Literature

Water is the basic necessity for the functioning of all life forms that
exist on earth. It is safe to say that water is the reason behind earth being the
only planet to support life. This universal solvent is one of the major resources
we have on this planet. It is impossible for life to function without water after
all, it makes for almost 70% of the earth. However, despite of its vast
abundance, water is very much limited. It is a non-renewable resource in
addition, we need to realize the fact that although there is an abundance of
water, not all of it is safe to consume. That’s why people came up with the
idea of ‘’water filtration ’’.Water filtration is the process of removing or
reducing the concentration of particulate matter, including suspended
particles, parasite, bacteria, algae, viruses and fungi, as well as other
undesirable chemical and biological contaminants from contaminants water to
produce safe and clean water for a specific purpose, such as drinking,
medical, and pharmaceutical applications, according to advances in Technical
Non Wavens, 2016.

The earliest recorded attempts to find or generate pure water date

back to 2000 B.C. Early Sanskrit writing outlined methods of purifying water.
Those methods ranged from boiling or placing not metal instruments in water
before drinking it to filtering that water through crude or charcoal filters (Bake
& Taras,1981). These writings suggest that major motive in purifying water
was to provide better tasting drinking water .It was assumed that good tasting
water was also clean. However, this tended to result in various forms of
illnesses and diseases. To overcome these risk, people started boiling water
before drinking it. In addition, they would allow the water to sit after boiling to
allow sediment to sink to the bottom and then skin the drinking water from the
top of the container. Centuries later, Hippocrates the famed father of
Medicine, began to conduct his own experiments in water purification. He was
the first to develop the concept of passing water through a cloth to help
remove slit and other sediments. He designed his own crude water filter to
purify the water he used for his patients. Later known as ‘’Hippocratic Sleeve’’,
this filter was a cloth bag through which water could be poured after being
boiled. The cloth would trap any sediments in the water that were causing bad
taste or smell. His invention continued to be used, along with boiling water,
until the late 1600s. It was during this time that both the first multi-stage filter
and the microscope were invented. Both of these inventions would prove
beneficial in water treatment processes. The microscope was used to
discover microscopic bacteria and other particles within the water. The multi-
stage filter helped remove more particles and make water cleaner.

In the mid-1700s, Joseph Amy obtained the first patent for a water
filter. His design incorporated wool, sponge, and charcoal layers to help purify
drinking water. The first home water filters were made available for sale in
1750.

It was not until 1854, when a major cholera infection spread through
London, that major cities started to take water filtration and treatment
seriously. Shortly thereafter, chlorine and ozone were used to treat water. The
first water treatment facility was built in Scotland in 1804, and another in 1806
in Paris. These facilities purified water using a setting process first, to remove
large sediments, and then passed the water through sand and charcoal filters.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, major advances in water

treatment and filtration continued to improve. More and more cities were
building water treatment facilities and using several filtration methods, along
with chlorine and ozone to help purify the water. As a result, the number of
cholera and typhoid outbreaks declined.

In the 1940s, desalination equipment was invented. This new

equipment was especially valuable for troops during World War ll and ensured
they had access to clean drinking water. Also, during this time, the U.S. Public
Health Service created the first standards for drinking water, which led to
approval of membrane filtration processes in 1957 and in 1974, the safe
drinking water act was passed, significantly paying the way for continued
improvements in water filtration and treatment processes.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 2.5 billion

people currently lack access to safely managed, clean drinking water that can
be collected in around trip of 30 minutes. The main reasons for water
insecurity include:

 Population growth and the depletion groundwater supplies

 Waste through farming irrigation , the production of energy ,and other
water – hungry industries
  Contaminated water and poor sanitation (affecting almost 1 billion
people). The WHO estimates that contaminated drinking water causes
502,000 deaths a year from diarrhea alone.

It truly shows that the massive growth of civilization and

industrialization has led to polluted water. At the same time, the
growth of science and technology has made us more aware of the dangers of
contaminated water. With so much focus on figuring out how to provide every
person in the world with clean water, many companies have thought up some
in genius strategies.

The following innovative water tech. solutions have been designed

to solve the problem of water shortage and contaminated to help us achieve a
better future for all. All of these new technologies have sprung up around the
world to bring water to communities that need it most.

*Direct-contact Membrane Desalination

If we could tap the vast oceans as a source of drinking water,

everyone would have more than enough. But that means removing the salt,
which is inefficient and costly using technology chemical engineering
professor Kamalesh Sirkar, has such dazzling promise. In Sirkar’s direct-
contact membrane distillation (DCMD) system, heated seawater flows across
a plastic membrane containing a series of hollow tubes filled with cold distilled
water. The DCMD’s tubes have tiny pores, which are designed so that they
can be penetrated by the water vapor which collects on them, but not by salt.
The vapor diffuses through the pores and is drawn off, to be condensed again
into liquid water.

According to Sirkar, his system is extremely efficient-it can be

produce 80 liters (21 gallons) of drinking water per 100 liters (26 gallons) of
seawater, about twice what existing desalination technology can produce.
One potential downside of DCMD is that it requires a steady, in expensive
source of heat in order to prevent the water temperature on either side of the
membrane from equalizing. But there’s the possibility that DCMD systems
could someday recycle waste heat from shore-based factories and offshore oil
drilling operations, making it a win-win for everybody [source: Greenmeier].

*Ceramic Water Filters

Clay ceramic filters work in a fashion similar the desalination

technology described in the previous section. Basically, water flows through
clay that contains a lot of really tiny holes, which are big enough to let water
molecules though, but too small for bacteria, dirt, and other bad stuff [source:
Doulton USA]. The first such device was developed by a British potter, Henry
Doulton, back in the early 1800s for purifying water drawn from the Thames,
which was so contaminated with raw sewage that cholera and typhoid were
continual dangers [source: Brodrick].

Since Daulton, other inventors had made improvements to his basic

concept, such as adding silver coatings to kill bacteria, so that today’s ceramic
filters do an even better job of getting rid of dangerous pathogens. The really
revolutionary development, though, is that humanitarian non-governmental
organizations have set up factories to wake and giveaway large numbers of
inexpensive ceramic filters in the developing world.

A 2006 study found that Cambodians who used the simple filters,
which are portable and require no energy from the sun, reduced the incidence
of diarrheal disease by 46 percent, and E. coli contamination in their water by
95 percent from 2003 rates [source: Resource Development International-
Cambodia].

*Salt for Purification

In impoverish countries where people can’t afford to build expensive

water treatment plants, they sometimes rely upon a free resource-sunlight. A
combination of heat and ultraviolet radiation from the sun will wipe out most of
the microbes that cause diarrhea, an ailment that claims the lives of 4000
children in Africa everyday. One complication: In order for the process to
work, the water has to be clear, which is a problem in rural areas where
people get their water from rivers, streams and bore holes that yield water
filled with suspended day particles.

But Joshua Pearce, an associate professor of materials science and

engineering at Michigan Technological University, and colleague Britney
Pawney from Queens University in Ontario have a solution. In a 2012 article
in the journal of water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development ,they
proposed a solar disinfection regimen that treats the water to draw out the
clay. While resulting drinking water has higher levels of water myself,” Pearce
said in an interview.” If I were somewhere with no clean water and I had kids
with diarrhea, and this could save their lives, I’d use it, no question “[source :
Science Daily, Pawney and Pearce].

*Nano Technology

Filters fashioned from this could remove sediment, bacteria and even
trace toxic elements from water with a faster flow rate than conventional
filters. The engineering of really, really small objects and structures, smaller
than the width of human hair- has a lot more potential to help clean up the
world’s drinking water. Researchers at India’s P.J. Sanghvi College of
Engineering say that filters fashioned from carbon nanotubes and alumina
fibers, for example, could be capable of removing not just sediments and
bacteria, but even traces of toxic elements such as arsenic.

One advantage of using Nano Filters as they’re called is that they’re,

more efficient than conventional water filtration systems, and don’t require as
much water pressure. But even though their pores are a lot smaller than
conventional filters, they have a similar or faster flow rate [source: Science
Daily].

At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers are even

looking at using of carbon that’s just a single-atom thick, to filter seawater.
With nanotechnology, it’s possible to create sheets filled with miniscule holes,
just a billionth of a meter thick, which can block particles of salt but allow
water molecules to pass through [source: Chandler].

*Solar Powered Water Filtration

Most of the time, the problem isn’t that there is no enough water, but
that the water is contaminated. Usually, this is because in developing
countries, 80 percent of sewage is discharged untreated into waterways. To
do something about this situation, Innovative Water Technology developed a
water filtration system called the Sun Spring Hybrid. It is a self-contained
portable solar and wind-powered system that provides 20,000 liters of clean
water a day from 10 years or more.

*The Water Filter Book

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon partnered up with the non-profit

Water is Life to create an informative solution. This tool is both educational
and a water filtration solution in the form of a drinkable book. Every page
contains basic water and sanitation advice that is printed and scientific coffee
filter paper. It can be used to purify water and reduce 99.9 percent of
bacteria .One book can provide clean water for four years for a single person.
They had them distributed these books in Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Haiti.

*The Lifestraw

Vestergaard is a global company innovating solutions that contribute

to a healthier and more sustainable world. They created a portable drinking
straw that filters dirty unsafe water to make it safe to drink .One straw can
purify (through a unique filtration system) a minimum of 1,000 liters of water. It
removes 99.9 percent of bacteria and parasites. They are made of plastic or
steel. High-capacity water purifiers for emergency preparedness and
emergency response teams are also available.
*Shortage Fix Fog Catchers

When the problem is not contamination, it’s a shortage. Sometimes,

villages and whole regions suffer from a severe water shortage because all
their ground water supplies have been use up. One such location is the Sidi
Ifni region of Morocco. The area does however, have abundance of fog.

This unique situation is what brought into being an ingenious idea by

non-profit Dar Si Hmad. They installed fog collector on the slopes of Mount
Boutmezguida. It is now the largest fog-harvesting project in the world with
around 6,300 liters of water harvested daily.

The best part is, it is not a complicated process at all! The mist is
caught as it passes through a weave of large vertical nets and trickles into a
collection system where it is filtered and mixed with ground water. The water
is then piped into a five villages where it provides clean and safe water for 400
people.

It is truly amazing how people manipulate science to generates

solutions for everyday life and help us to answer the great mysteries of the
universe. Science is the greatest collective endeavour. It has a specific role,
as well as a variety of functions for the benefit of our society: creating new
knowledge, improving education, and increasing the quality of our lives.

WASTEWATER WASTEWATER WASTEWATER

SAND CHARCOAL STONE

RENEWABLE
RENEWABLE RENEWABLE
WATER
WATER WATER

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

 THE PROBLEM

Statement of the Problem

The main problem of this study is to determine if the sand, charcoal

and stone is possible is an alternative water filter and if this study can help in
lessening the wastewater and in preserving the environment.

This study aims to answer the following question:

1. Which of the sand, charcoal and stone can filter the water better?

Null Hypothesis

There is no significant difference on the level of filtration between the sand,

charcoal and stone as alternative water filter.

Scope and Limitations

This study was conducted at Holy Child Academy Pitogo, Pres. Carlos
P. Garcia, Bohol in the S.Y.2021-2022.

This study focused on determining the use of sand, charcoal and

stone as alternative water filter on the existing water conversation and filtering
system of the sand, charcoal and stone.

Significance of the Study

The main goal of this study is to determine if the sand, charcoal and stone is
possible as alternative water filter and if this study can help in lessening the
wastewater and helping in preserving the environment. If the study is proven it
can be immense help to:

 Rural Places with Water Shortage-it will help them to get available
clean water through the use of sand, charcoal and stone as
alternative water filter as solution to their shortage of water supply.
 Future Researchers-the result of this study may inspire nature
researchers on gaining more ideas.
 Society-the result of this study may lessen the wastewater and
can help in preserving the environment.

Assumption

The water the researchers collected the data was totally

contaminated, but the materials used in collecting the data equally gives value
for the filtration process. The researchers assume that the sand, charcoal and
stone can be truly works as an alternative water filter, the researcher assume
that sand water filter will be the most functional and effective among the stone
water filter and charcoal water filter. Also, the researcher assume that this
study can help in producing clean water for our daily usage and this study
might be the effective alternative water filter in the future.
 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Charcoal- is the converter of the wastewater into clean water as it removes

toxins from the water without stripping the water of salts and important
minerals.

Durability- is the ability of the sand, charcoal and stone as the alternative
water filter.

Functionality- it’s the effectiveness of the sand, charcoal and stone as

alternative water filter.

Mosquito Net- is use to increase the level of filtration.

Renewable Water- is the water that can be reused.

Sand- is the converter of the wastewater into clean water as it reduce

numbers of bacteria and in straining most of the solids.

Stone- is the converter of the wastewater into clean water as it removes the
rust and organic sediment particles and stops propagation of bacteria.

Wastewater- is the water that needs to be filtered.