Mentors: Vinka Craver and Zach Shepard (University of Rhode Island)

Project Location

University of Rhode Island

Project Description

Contaminated drinking water leads to a variety of diseases that cause sickness and death; however, an estimated 884 million people live without access to clean drinking water. One technology focused on providing clean drinking water to under-served communities is ceramic water filters (CWFs). CWFs are a point-of-use technology that are low cost and use locally available clay and burnout materials during construction. Thus, the technology is transportable, manufactured locally, cost effective, and accessible to those who need it. These filters are used to remove microbiological contaminants from drinking water. The variations in local clay materials and the clay to burnout material ratio results in variations in porosity and tortuosity. Our goal is to relate the raw materials (clay and sawdust) used to manufacture CWFs to the pore structure of the filter and determine how this, in turn, relates to the overall CWF’s performance for the user. To examine the CWF’s performance for users we will examine the strength of the filter and its ability to remove bacteria. This study will demonstrate how the quality of raw materials used for CWF construction influence performance metrics that are important to the users. This information will assist CWF factories in choosing materials and processes that can be used to manufacture high quality filters.