How can dirty water be treated

Boiled water should be covered and left to cool before drinking. For water drawn from wells, leave it for compounds to settle before you filter out clean water for use. This method uses chemical and physical processes to purify water and make it safe for human consumption. Filtration eliminates both large compounds and small, dangerous contaminants that cause diseases with a simple and quick filtration process.. Since filtration does not deplete all the mineral salts, water that has been filtered is considered healthier compared to water purified using other methods.

Compared to reverse osmosis, filtration is considered effective when it comes to selective elimination of much smaller molecular compounds such as chlorine and pesticides. The other factor that makes filtration less costly is that it does not require a lot of energy needed in distillation and reverse osmosis. It is an economic method of water purification because little water is lost during purification. Distillation is a water purification method that utilizes heat to collect pure water in the form of vapor.

This method is effective by the scientific fact that water has a lower boiling point than other contaminants and disease-causing elements found in water. Water is subjected to a heat source until it attains its boiling point.

It is then left at the boiling point until it vaporizes. This vapor is directed into a condenser to cool. Upon cooling, vapor is reversed into liquid water that is clean and safe for drinking.

Other substances that have a higher boiling point are left as sediments in the container. This method is effective in removing bacteria, germs, salts and other heavy metals such as lead, mercury and arsenic. Try out PMC Labs and tell us what you think. Learn More. Turning water into wine may be among the most venerable of miracles, but for Greg Allgood, the real miracle has been turning dirty water into drinkable water. Allgood spends about a third of his time in places like Malawi where people have limited or no access to treated, potable water sources.

Worldwide, as many as 2 billion people drink water extracted from shallow wells or polluted lakes and rivers, with nothing like the municipal treatment systems that are taken for granted in most of North America and Europe.

In the few developing locales where such infrastructure might exist—and indeed, even in the richest nations on the planet—this resource can be ruined suddenly by a natural disaster like a hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami, creating an immediate, desperate, and widespread need for safe drinking water.

Water can be the key to keeping death and disease at bay. Hydration is fundamental to bodily functions, including the ability to retain nutrients. Infants, the elderly, and immunocompromised persons are especially vulnerable to dehydration caused by diarrhea, which is in turn spawned by bacteria or viruses acquired from tainted drinking water.

As opposed to dealing with these ailments once they appear, purifying water can keep them from appearing at all. The CDC became interested in point-of-use treatment when cholera exploded in Peru in and spread rapidly throughout Latin America. The CDC sought alternatives to help affected populations in the meantime. Chlorine bleach was among the most widely available disinfectants, although people had difficulty gauging how much was needed to treat a given amount of water without creating an unpleasant taste or harmful concentrations.

The agency therefore supported development of special bottles of dilute bleach—the bottle caps were designed to hold just the right amount of solution to safely treat one jerry can of water. But while this approach continues to be used in many parts of the world, it does not remove suspended material from the water, leaving users with water that is microbe-free but can still look dirty. Combined with large-particle calcium hypochlorite—essentially, powdered bleach—the result was PUR, a proprietary formulation that Allgood describes as reverse-engineering the municipal water treatment process.

Using PUR is like making a batch of powdered soft drink mix. Each packet of powder is designed to treat 10 liters of water. One simply tears open the packet, pours the powder directly into the water, and stirs.

Sedimentation : When the particles of floc get big enough, gravity causes them to sink to the bottom. Filtration : The process of removing remaining small impurities. Disinfection : Chlorine or other kinds of disinfection methods are applied to kill any bacteria and other living organisms that may be in the water.

Storage : Water is stored in tanks while the process of disinfection completes, and then is transported through pipes to our homes and workplaces. Although experiment illustrates how water is cleaned, the water processed will not be cleaned to the extent of being potable.

Using the skills they have learned in classes and on-site training, UD EWB has built filters and pumps for water in Malawi and the Philippines. This is just one example of how engineers use science to solve problems. K Engineering Outreach.