The path to clean water

It was 10 am in the morning. It was a fresh windy cool and crispy air that started whistling like an invisible ghost ringing the wind chimes in a musical tune. The red and green colour birds with chilli like beak started twitting their morning melody. The enormous garden stood like a royal palace and the thick dried strong brown big branches danced welcoming the morning. The green brown beautiful countless leaves whispered to each other about their morning plans. It was morning in the city Mañana, and this was house number 22/14 in the Apple Cider street. After eating his typical breakfast, toast bread, cereals and scrambled eggs, Ayush sat down in front of his laptop working on the homework assignment posted by his teacher: "Why do people say that there will be no water for us in the future?" He kept surfing through the internet, noting all of the information he found.............

"When the well's dry, we know the worth of water" As said by Benjamin Franklin, it is true that until and unless we don't drink water for a day, we don't even understand how people live for days without water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=womIxQqO2tE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCHhwxvQqxg

Clean and accessible water for all is an essential part of the world we want to live in and there is sufficient fresh water on the planet to achieve this. However, due to bad economics or poor infrastructure, millions of people including children die every year from diseases associated with inadequate water supply, sanitation, and hygiene. There is a village in Maharashtra where children couldn’t live more than 5 years due to the inadequate water supply.

What can we do to address this?
The Sustainable Development Goals have committed the international community to expand international cooperation and capacity building on water and sanitation related activities and programmes, and also to support local communities in improving water and sanitation management. Through Goal 6, the countries of the world have resolved to achieve universal access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation and hygiene to all in the next fifteen years.

"But how can we make a water purifier?? Let me ask my sister!"

"Hi Ayush! I appreciate that you are thinking about your contribution to save water! Yes we can make a water purifier but it will take a lot of time plus a huge amount of research too! So are you ready??"

"Hey! I was completing my homework on "Why do people say that there will be no water for us in the future?" and while researching I found that we can make our own water purifier at home for contributing to save water. So can we make one??"

"So let us begin from today itself! You begin probing on water pollution and the natural filters we will be using and you will also be making the sketch of our water purifier. Till the time you research on these, I will on the rest of the things!"

"Sure! Thank you! Yes I am ready!"

" Keep quiet and get to work! Or do you want me to tell momma about your not drinking the glass of milk and throwing it in the dustbin??"

"Okay no no no no! Sorry! I am going to research and it will be better that you also!"

"Well if you tell mom then I will also tell her that you lost her favourite or rather precious necklace? Ha?"

"But what are the rest of the things??"

Industrial Waste: Industrial waste contains pollutants like asbestos, lead, mercury and petrochemicals which are extremely harmful to both people and environment. Industrial waste is discharged into lakes and rivers by using fresh water making the water contaminated.

Dumping: Dumping of solid wastes and litters in water bodies cause immense rationales for water pollution. Litters include glass, plastic, aluminium, styrofoam etc. Different things take different amount of time to degrade in water. They include ramification towards the aquatic plants and animals.

Water Pollution:

Water Pollution is the contamination of water bodies usually as a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers and groundwater.

Sewage and Waste water: Sewage, garbage and liquid waste of households, agricultural lands and factories are discharged into lakes and rivers. The wastes contain harmful chemicals and toxins which make the water poisonous for aquatic animals and plants.

Global Warming: Due to global warming, there is an increase in water temperature. This increase in temperature results in death of aquatic plants and animals. This also results in bleaching of coral reefs in water.

Oil Pollution: Sea water gets polluted due to oil spilled from ships and tankers while travelling. The spilled oil does not dissolve in water and form a thick sludge polluting the water.

Separation Techniques

Separation Techniques: We will use in our Water Purifier: Filtration

Definition of separation techniques: Separation techniques are those techniques that can be used to separate two different states of matter such as liquid and solid. Such separation techniques include filtration or evaporation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqLKPmGyXbE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5ep0-ojPGw

youtube.com/watch?v=nztV4w0DtOo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJYnoXUWa2o

What are some of the separation techniques?
- Crystallisation
- Filtration
- Decantation
- Sublimation
- Evaporation
- Simple distillation
- Fractional distillation
- Chromatography
- Centrifugation
- Separating funnel
- Magnetic separation
- Precipitation

ALL THESE FILTERS ARE NATURAL

THE FILTERS
WE WILL USE

We will use banana peels as our filter because banana peels contain sulfur, nitrogen, number of acids and other atoms which are capable of purifying hydrogen and oxygen. It functions the same way magnets do under terms of attracting heavy metals.

WE WILL USE COCONUT. ALSO SINCE IT FILTERS WATER BY ABSORBING IT THROUGH THE LAYERS OF FIBER. COCONUT IS AN EFFECTIVE MEDIUM AS IT IS HIGH IN CARBON. COCONUT MILK IS SECOND ONLY TO WATER IN PURITY. COMMERCIAL WATER FILTERS OFTEN USE COCONUT CARBON FILTERS TO REMOVE TOXINS AND PARTICLES. THE COCONUT HUSKS, WHETHER USED COMMERCIALLY OR IN A DO-IT-YOURSELF FILTER SYSTEM, IN ORDER TO TRAP MOST PARTICLES, TOXINS AND PARASITES SUCH AS CRYPTOSPORIDIUM AND GIARDIA.

Charcoal is a slow, but an effective, water filter. The carbon in charcoal helps remove toxins. Charcoal filters out particles down to 1 micron, including nitrogen oxide, lead and sulfur oxide. Secondly, dirty or soft charcoal will dissolve into the water instead of purifying it therefore it is significant that the charcoal has been washed thoroughly before purifying/filtering the water.

Test for acidity and solubility of salt

Ayush and his sister Divya tested how much acid and salt is there in a glass of water through technology known as a PH STRIP.

Definition of the pH: The pH strip is a scale used to specify how acidic or basic a liquid based solution is. Acidic solutions have a lower pH, while basic solutions have a higher pH. pure water is neither acidic nor basic and has a pH of 7. pH is also known as potential of hydrogen on the bases of the concentration of the hydrogen ions present in the aqueous solution.

When we filtered the dirty water through the water purifier, it was significant to test that "what is the amount of acid or salt in the water purified by the water purifier?" and to experiment that we used the pH strip and achieved our results:

The pH level of the dirty water used was

2.75

The pH level of the filtered water was

6. 95