Testing Metallic Iron Filtration Systems for Decentralized Water Treatment at Pilot Scale

Abstract

There are many factors to consider for the design of appropriate water treatment systems including: cost, the concentration and type of biological and/or chemical contamination, concentration limits at which contaminant(s) are required to be removed, required flow rate, level of local expertise for on-going maintenance, and social acceptance. An ideal technology should be effective at producing clean, potable water; however it must also be low-cost, low-energy (ideally energy-free) and require low-maintenance. The use of packed beds containing metallic iron (Fe 0 filters) has the potential to become a cheap widespread technology for both safe drinking water provision and wastewater treatment. for decentralized water treatment particularly in the developing world. A design for safe drinking water to a community of 100 people is also discussed as starting module. It is suggested that Fe 0 filters have the potential for significant worldwide applicability, but particularly in the developing world. The appropriate design of Fe 0 filters, however, is site-specific and dependent upon the availability of local expertise/materials.

Technologies for Decentralized Fluoride Removal: Testing Metallic Iron-based Filters

“…Thus, there is diversity among operational factors that can impact the efficiency of a Fe 0 filter. This high degree of diversity for significant factors suggests that only a well-designed systematic approach could identify conditions for optimal operation [40,[73][74][75][76][77].…”

“…During the past two decades, great efforts have been made to develop Fe 0 filters for use in decentralized water supply systems in developing countries, including Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, India, Nepal and Vietnam [39,40,64,66,72,[78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86]. Several Fe 0 filters exist and were also developed/optimized by scientists from many institutions worldwide, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [78,79], George Mason University [81] and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology [86,87].…”

Appropriate technology for domestic wastewater management in under-resourced regions of the world

“…In order to ensure compliance with the recommended guidelines and standards, information on discharge and reuse standards should be made available to the operators and the cost of laboratory analysis should be highly subsidized or borne by a third party. The importance of well-equipped laboratory in the developing world as a prelude to safe water delivery and improved environmental sanitation has been previously recognized (Tepong-Tsindé, et al, 2015, Ndé-Tchoupé, et al, 2015.…”

Predicting the Hydraulic Conductivity of Metallic Iron Filters: Modeling Gone Astray

“…The same reasoning suggests that a material exhausting within one year (t 8 ) should have a k iron value of 1.47 µg particle´1 d´1. Such a material could be useful for household water filters [77].…”

“…Considering this vacuity, the intention herein is to pave the way for the determination of k iron values useful for modeling purposes. Clearly, while determining k iron values useful for models, experiments should be designed to characterize as much parameters as possible in a systematic approach [77,78]. The major advantage of this approach is that the same set of experiments will generate data enabling the discussion of the appropriateness of current approaches, as well.…”