Low Cost Domestic water Treatment Unit by Chlorination

Abstract

We have just stepped into the new millennium with fond hopes and aspirations to make this world a better place to live in for ourselves and for the future generations. Rapid urban population growth over the past 40 years has introduced important implications on the environment. Urban, domestic and industrial consumers are using large amounts of water and consequently depleting the available resources. At the same time, they are degrading the resources with their wastes. Growing cities often degrade their own resources. While the population load doubles, the pollution load tends to increase 5-10 times, even more in some cases. There is broad evidence that water quality destruction is already threatening economic development and long-term water security. Rural scenario with respect to water availability for drinking and agricultural purposes is bleak. The water table is receding fast resulting in depletion of shallow aquifers. At glance, our needs are increasing not only because of population growth that will see a world of 9 billion people in 205, as against 2.5 billion in 1950, but also because of the expansion of irrigation for agriculture, industrial development and a widening use of waterborne sanitations. Until recently, an ordinary Indian was satisfied with availability of water. Today, the concern is to have water, which is devoid of chemical and bacteriological contamination. The quality of surface and ground water are closely linked due to its circulatory phenomenon. Due to release of wastes, industrial effluents and also residual fertilizers and pesticides on account of intensive agricultural practices, the quality of water deteriorates. Hygiene and environmental sanitation are the victims of neglect in India. Rural services lag far behind urban ones, but delivering affordable services to the rapidly growing numbers of urban poor remain a formidable challenge. With the rise in industrialization, two of the greatest gifts of nature, air and water are getting contaminated. Polluted air and water have become major threats to healthy human existence. Water borne diseases are a major public health concern throughout the world. The contaminated water continues to bring down millions with the diseases like diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid, jaundice, gastro entities, etc. Though people are receiving the so-called potable drinking water from municipal taps in cities and towns, they are still forced to either boil water or install purifiers. Thus, there is a large potential for purified drinking water in India. The objective of the research is to develop a relatively low cost, easily affordable and compact kind of a unit for drinking water purification at domestic usage level. The concept of "Reverse Engineering" has been followed for the same. In this project theoretical consideration includes various treatments for water purification. Mainly for this project, chlorination of drinking water is focused upon. Attempt is to be made to retain residual chlorine in treated water so that purified water is available even in absence of power supply and bacterial growth is arrested for a longer period of time compared to conventional water purifiers.