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RV College of
Engineering

TITLE : Design of rainwater harvesting filter

Presented by :

GUIDE NAME : Dr Anantharama V

Designation : Associate Professor J DAIVIK SANTOSH USN : 1RV15CV132
Department of Civil Engineering MRITYUNJAY S A USN : 1RV16CV056
RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru NAVANEETH S N USN : 1RV16CV059
NIYANTH G V USN : 1RV16CV067
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INTRODUCTION

Rainwater is considered to be the most purest form of water ,but it gets contaminated
when it comes in contact with the catchment area .The present rain water harvesting
filter available in the market only removes the larger particles like leaves and plastic
waste but fails to remove fine silt ,dust particles and animal waste which pollute the
rainwater .These filters just contain a mesh with a pore size of about 5 mm to 10
mm which are ineffective in reducing the turbidity, TDS and other parameters.

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LITERATURE SURVEY
Year Published Title of Paper Author Publication Key Findings
2017 An Appraisal of Water Pooja Chowdhary Mehtani Springer The water sustainability in Bengaluru was
Sustainability carried out considering the factors such as
status of the water source, population,
in Bangalore, Karnataka supply and demand and increasing
pollution in existing lakes; it was concluded
that in order to make the city more
sustainable water conservation and
rainwater harvesting should be given
utmost importance.

2016 Self-cleaning filtration: A A.Silva Vieira , Elsevier 1.Design layout of an auto cleansing filter
novel concept for rainwater M. Weeber, E. Ghisi with the use of pressure valve.
2.Advantages of back wash in a filter.
harvesting systems 3.An idea of how pressure valve works.

2017 Alleviating health risks
associated with
rainwater harvesting
Sarah Ward , David Butler ,
Ann Marie Deegan
ICE Rain can wash different types of
contaminants into the water you collect (for
example, bird droppings on your roof could
end up in your water barrel or tank).
Rainwater can carry bacteria, parasites, and
chemicals that could make you sick, and it
has been linked to disease outbreaks.

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LITERATURE SURVEY
Year Published Title of Paper Author Publication Key Findings
2008 Chemical composition of Abida Begum, S. HariKrishna, Elsevier The rainwater that it comes in contact with
rainwater in south Irfanulla Khan air gets polluted with various materials such
as Ca2+, Na+, K+ and Mg2+ were
Bangalore, Karnataka detected.
2019 An examination of the Sungwoo Bae , Juan P. Maestre , Elsevier The communities of microbes in rainwater
microbial community and Kerry A. Kinney, Mary Jo Kirisits varies depending on the roofing material,
this indicates selection of roof top could
occurrence of potential human influence the growth of microorganisms.
pathogens in rainwater Bird dropping on rooftops affects the
harvested from different quality. Metal is proved to limit the growth
roofing materials. of microbes. The importance of selecting
roofing material at the time of construction
plays an important role in the filtration
process.

2019 Rainwater as a Source of Khayan Khayan , Science direct The use of a filter consisting of activated
Drinking Water: Health Adi Heru Husodo, carbon was found to be effective in
reducing the pH, turbidity, and Pb content
Impacts and Rainwater Indwiani Astuti, in the rainwater collected from houses with
Treatment Sudarmadji Sudarmadji, zinc coated roofing material.
Tjut Sugandawaty Djohan

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LITERATURE SURVEY
Year Published Title of Paper Author Publication Key Findings
2013 Enhanced drinking water Vincenzo Naddeo, Elsevier By using 75um membrane for prefiltration
supply through harvested Davide Scannapieco, and 0.5 um membrane is used after granular
activated carbon for microfiltration which
rainwater treatment Vincenzo Belgiorno will help removing turbidity and suspended
solid particles up to 99%.
2018 Waste water treatment unit Abraham Francics.A , IRJET The most widely used material in rainwater
using activated charcoal Thenmozhi.R , Sivakumar.M , filtration systems is activated
carbon/charcoal. This is mainly due to its
Sivakumar.K , Sasikumar.G , adsorption property which is due to the
Thamaraimuthuayyanraj.S presence of a very large surface area. It is
highly effective in the case of removing
turbidity and TDS. 
2011 Influence of local sources on K.B. Budhavant , P.S.P. Rao, Elsevier Regions in Pune with high traffic volume
rainwater chemistry over Pune P.D. Safai, K. Ali location have PH more than 7 which makes
it alkaline. Alkalinity is due to calcium ion
region, India (Ca2+) from roadside dust. Other regions
with industrial and vehicular emission have
a high concentration of sulfate ions (SO4-)
and nitrate ion (NO3-) which makes it
acidic. About 98% of acidity is neutralized
by alkaline components. Various sources for
contamination are soil dust, biomass
burning, sea salt, and from human
activities.

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

From Water Characterization it was found that the water after passing through the
roof top catchment area, the turbidity, total Suspended solids were found to exceed
the Permissible IS limits.(IS10500-2012)

It was also found that the Presence of E coli ( E. coli O157:H7) which causes water
borne diseases make there way into the water from bird droppings on catchment area.

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OBJECTIVES
 To carry out the water characterization of rainwater collected from rooftop of
houses in Bangalore and comparing it with water standards.
 To suggest a model to help in removing the turbidity, suspended solids, dissolved
solids present in the harvested water by using various water filter technologies.
 To design a self-cleansing mechanism for easy maintenance of the filter, thereby
keeping the cost in mind.
 To bring the filtered water to non-potable water standards enabling household
filter to purify.

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DESIGN METHODOLOGY

Water
Comparison Incorporation of Testing &
Characterisatio
with BIS filter media Validation
n

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EXPERIMENTATION FOR PROBLEM SOLVING

 The filter media initially consisted of a Nylon mesh of 2mm pore size along with
Filter floss (coarse and fine) which was found ineffective in removing turbidity.
 To make this more effective, geotextile (200 micron ) which resulted in removal
of very fine suspended particles, but water still had the presence of a milky white
colour.
 To remove this milky white colour the use of granular activated carbon is used
which also helps in the reduction of hardness.

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DESIGN EXPLANATION
 The filtration process of rain water was developed to have the feature of self
cleaning capacity and low maintenance. This was achieved by providing an up
flow filtration process.
 The water flows through the filter media and passes into a storage tank which
consists of a float valve which closes as soon as the tank is full.
 This leads to water filling over the filter media and creating a certain amount of
pressure in the filtration unit.
 This build up pressure triggers the pressure valve, which opens as soon as the
pressure limit is reached, leading to a down flow filtration. Which creates an
hydraulic shock in the filter media due to the change in flow direction and
pressure.
 This cleans the filter media without the involvement of an electronic equipment.
Hence providing a self cleaning filter. 10/17
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FILTRATION LAYOUT DESIGN

Overflow unit Filtration Unit

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MATERIALS USED
 Filter floss: The floss is the 1st stage of filter media that comes in contact with the
rainwater coming from the over flow unit. The filter floss consists of two layers namely,
fine and coarse filter floss. The coarse filter floss has a larger pore size and obstructs the
larger particles. The fine filter floss has a much more smaller pore size, the main purpose
of this floss is to perform mechanical filtration, and hence removing smaller particles from
the contaminated rainwater.

 Filter bags: The process is very similar to filter floss to perform mechanical filtration, but
these have much smaller pore sizes. The ones used in this layout are 200 micron and 5
micron. This is also used to prevent the mixing of leached granular activated carbon with
water.

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MATERIALS USED
• Granular activated carbon: The major advantage of granular activated carbon is that it
provides a dual property to perform chemical filtration and also mechanical filtration. The
process of mechanical filtration is done by the carbon particles which form voids in between
each other when placed closely. The other feature of granular activated carbon is to perform
chemical filtration, this is achieved by the adsorption property of activated carbon. The
availability of such a high surface area leads to the possibility of adsorption of chemicals
like chlorine and any other chemical to get adsorbed on to the particles of granular activated
carbon.

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RESULTS
Sl. Test Result Results Results Protocol
no s (1) (2) (3)
1. Turbidity, NTU 41.9 41.9 26.4 IS 3025 (part-10): 1984
Reaff.2017
2. pH value 8.1 8.1 7.8 IS 3025 (part-11): 1983
Reaff.2017
3. Total dissolved solids, 546.0 546.0 356.0 IS 3025 (part-16): 1984
mg/L Reaff.2017
4. Total Suspended solids 679.0 679.0 189.0 IS: 3025 (Part 17): 1984
mg/L Reaff.2017

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RESULTS
 For conducting this research three sample where collected and the sample are sample one
(R1) is rainwater collected after flowing over the catchment, sample two (R2) is rainwater
form conventional RWH and sample three (R3) is from proposed rainwater filter.
 The result of this mechanism is that there is no need for human intervention to clean and
replace the media multiple times.
 The main advantage of this system being the robustness of this design which cleanses the
rainwater and makes it usable immediately after rainwater is filtered through it and the use
of pressure valve in it also solves the problem of dissembling the system frequently.
 which is carried out by backwashing. The testing of the new design prototype fitted with
the pressure valve is to be carried out in order to examine the proper functioning of the
system.

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REFERENCES
• Mohammad A. Alim, Ataur Rahman, Zhong ta, Bijan Samali, Muhammad M. khan, Shafiq
Shirin (2019) Suitability of roof harvested rainwater for potential potable water production,
Elsevier.
• B. Kus, Jaya Kandasamy, S. Vigneswaran, H.K Shon, N. Areerachakul (2011), Third
international conference on challenges in environmental science and engineering.
• Syed Azizul Haq ,PEng , Harvesting Rainwater from Buildings , Springer .
• Won-il park, Sanghyun Jeong, Sung-Ju Im, Am Jang (2019), High turbidity water treatment
by ceramic microfiltration membrane: Fouling identification and process optimization,
Elsevier
• Rajput, P., Gupta, T., Kumar, A., 2016a. Diurnal variability of sulfate and nitrate aerosols
during wintertime in the Indo-Gangetic Plain: implications to heterogeneous phase chemistry.
RSC
• Rao, P.S.P., et al., 2016. Sources of chemical species in rainwater during monsoon and non-
monsoonal periods over two mega cities in India and dominant source region of secondary
aerosols. Atmos. Environ.
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