Design and Study of Low Cost Household Drinking Water Treatment Process for Rural Areas

Abstract

As we know that, surface water and ground water are polluted because of anthropogenic activity. So, to address the widespread need of safe water for drinking purpose, a low cost water treatment process can serve as a subsidy such that every family can take advantage of this luxury. In this paper, literature review of existing water treatment processes have been completed and design of a low cost water treatment process is developed. Water flow rate tests are carried out to optimize water treatment plant design. The processes are based on simple and natural techniques which consist of Screening, Natural aeration, Sedimentation, Filtration media- Gravel, Sand, charcoal) and Disinfection by SODIS method  that empowers people anywhere in the world to create affordable and effective water treated out of locally available materials. The cost of manufacturing a unit is calculated to be Rs.245, which is an affordable price for people in rural areas. With a low cost water treatment process, residents in the rural areas could enjoy having safe drinking water and improve quality of life.

Experimental investigation was carried out to study the removal efficiency of turbidity, TSS, TDS, and bacterial population (MPN) in drinking water, and got 89.53% removal efficiency for turbidity, 91.56% for TSS, 62.19% for TDS, 100% bacterial removal and the dissolve oxygen level was increased by 20-25%.

So, after treatment of water through the designed model, it shows a greater efficiency in removing all these above mentioned water parameters and it will serve clean and pathogen free water to rural areas.