10/27/21

There's WHAT in the water?!?

    In our Water class, a core class that combines math and science and applies it to real-world issues, we learned many things this past week. We started with scientific notation, exponents, and logarithms. with which we applied by checking exactly what was in our drinking water.  To test this we met with Rock from 'Plant Chicago' where he showed us his organization's hydroponics and aquaponics set-ups. It was really cool being able to see how the cycle worked and how each organic benefitted the next, the fishs' excrement became ammonia which was taken in as nutrients for the plants in the form of nitrites which ten transformed into nitrates to grow the plants.  we were able to measure exactly how much pH, Ammonia, Nitrates, and nitrites were in the aquaponics systems water. we did this using the API Water test kit; using the kit we dropped what looked like a dye, this dye would indicate how much of each contaminated the water. It was really cool since according to Rock, using that info you could adjust the system to balance out the chemicals and contaminates.

      Then soon after this, we were made aware that our Action Project would be creating our own DIY water filters, obviously, we had no experience with this so we took a trip to one of the major water filtration facilities in Chicago to take a tour and see how water filtration is done on a large scale.  As we toured the facility we learned that the water for the city is taken from Lake Michigan through an intake, it is completely sanitized with chloride and filtered, and then beneficial minerals for flavor and health such as fluoride are added. We journeyed deep into the facility where we were met with things like loud machinery, massive tubes, and a huge room with what looked like 5-6 Olympic-sized pools filled completely with water.  The trip really got me thinking about how I would put my own water filter together.  

    The last part of our week was spent learning about our project. We were informed that the goal for this action project was to create our own filter using items from the home to create our very own filter so we could test the changes in the level of different particles in the water before and after filtering. The various steps to this goal are as follows: create as dirtiest water possible, use a water test to see how dirty it is before filtering, build your own filter from materials at home, then filter the dirty water and test again for results.  In the beginning stages of this project, we were told to create designs for what your filter was gonna look like along with a diagram of what you thought was gonna be used. Here's what my initial designs looked like:

This image shows quiet a few items I had to compromise on, such as the activated charcoal, because the commute back home takes a great deal of time. This was all okay in the end since I found more than enough replacement materials around my house.

The Materials I used for this project are:

• water from fish tank mixed with rainwater + mud
• old tennis ball canister cut to catch water 
• plastic tea bottle container cut in half to hold filter materials
• Ducktape
• woodlike scouring pad
• clay media balls
• thin film from aquarium separator
• gravel 
• sand
• clean water to cycle the filter through
• Scissors
• adult supervision since I can't be trusted with scissors

pre-filter water test results:

My dirty water had a nitrate level of 40ppm, or 40/1,000,000 or 0.000 040, or 4.0x10^-5

It had a General Hardness Level of 180ppm, or 180/1,000,000 or 0.00018, or 1.8x10^-4

Lastly, it had a pH of 8 or 10^-8 or .00000010 or1/100, 000, 000

It smelled extremely earthy and I really hesitated to touch it  :(

After the first water test, I had to start construction of my filter my strategy was to put it together with the larger filtering items like my scouring pad and the gravel at the bottom and the finer filtering items at the top this was done to allow for the larger contaminates to be removed first. 

My design once finished looked like this.

After construction, I proceeded to filter the water three times and I realized I wasn't really getting very clean results and was confused as to why this was. I would only learn after the completion of this project that I made a huge mistake. I hadn't cycled clean water through first meaning all the materials I put in to clean the water were actually what was making it dirtier.  Regardless here is what I saw when I filtered it through each time.

By the end, the filtered water had a nitrate level of 40ppm, or 40/1,000,000 or, 0.00004 or, 4x10^5

It had a general hardness level of 140ppm, or 140/1,000,000, or 0.00014, or 1.4x10^4

It had a Ph of 8, or 10x^-8 or, .00000010 or, 1/100, 000, 000    

here's how it looked... ew

To put this in perspective here's how this compared to Chicago:

                                   Chicago                                   My filtered water

pH -                                 8.2                                                 8

Nitrates -                    0.362ppm                                        40ppm

General Hardness -      144ppm                                        140ppm

As you can see because of the insufficient filtering caused by me forgetting to cycle the water first caused the General hardness to be the only thing that actually changed in my results.

Official Lab report 

Question: How well can my homemade water filter out water particles such as Water hardness nitrates and pH?

Hypothesis

The nitrates will be lower after filtering because nitrates are essentially dirt so it should be the biggest change. Water hardness should see a smaller change in water hardness compared to nitrates. Lastly, pH will be about the same if not lesser.

Procedure

1. acquire dirty water
2. collect materials
3. test pre-filtered dirty water record results
4. build water filter
5. cycle filter to clean out
6. filter water
7. test newly filtered water and record results

Altogether I've learned a lot. I've had a great time especially with the construction part of this project. I've learned a lot about filters. How they are used in real-life and what exactly is in my water and exactly how much.  While making this I've come across quite a few errors and learned from them, and if I were to do it again some of the things that I would change are as follows: First as I mentioned before I would cycle clean water through my filter so that my filter materials wouldn't be further contaminating my water. Another thing I would do is try some activated charcoal like I initially planned so that it could pull out impurities, also I would use some cloth because I believe that since it's very fine it would be better at filtering stuff out compared to my aquarium separating film.  My results from my project weren't particularly the greatest and I believe if I make these changes my results would definitely be better.

Citations

'City of Chicago' https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/water/WaterQltyResultsNRpts/ccReports/CCA-2020-14.pdf Accessed 31 October 2021