Development of medium-scale filtration device for supplying drinking water during flood situations

Abstract

A scaled-up device for rapid water treatment is presented based on technologies described in earlier effort (“Point of use drinking water filtration: A microfluidic solution providing safe drinking water during flood situation,” J. Water Process Eng. 52 (2023) 103545). It comprises inertia-based microfluidic filtration, selective ion-exchange, antimicrobial activated carbon, and ultraviolet disinfection stages. The overall performance of the device is tested using synthetic, field, and flood water samples. The size of the bypass port is optimized to achieve ∼99 % filtration efficacy. The length of IX media encapsulated in mini channels is adjusted by studying its effect in limiting the dissolved solids and the hydraulic resistance. The adsorption performance and capacity of the AC at equilibrium conditions is evaluated by tests using methylene blue. To augment the filtrate throughput, both unit and module level parallelization scheme is developed. Unit filters are arranged both in planar and vertical levels to form a parallelized module (PM). Subsequently, PMs are multiplexed with a carefully designed inlet distributary, outlet, and bypass collection network. The prototype device can treat nearly 400 L of raw water in six days of continuous operation. Integrated UV reactors in the full-scale device, show complete sterilization of the influent water.