NAME REG NUMBER PROGRAMME

MICHAEL CHIHUMBIRI R198317K HENMEE

SHEPHERD CHOENI M R202066W HENMTR
EUGENE MABHENA B R202037L HENMTR
ELWIN MABAMBE R206179G HENMTR
WINNET MANDEYA R206280P HENMECH
MUNASHE MAZISE R206263K HENMECH
KINGSLY T MUNJOMA R204716J HENMECH
MUKUNDI M MOYO R207008K HENMECH
BRIGHTON MOMBE R206283Z HENMECH
MUNASHE MAMBUDZI R206262S HENMECH

COURSE: MECH201(Computer Aided Design and Machine Elements)

LECTURERS: Eng.T.Chikuku & Eng.G.Tigere

TITLE: Water extraction and filtration System

INTRODUCTION

Water and access to clean supplies of it has always been a challenge to people through out
History. Water is an essential commodity and is one of the fundamental substances required
to sustain daily activities such as cooking, washing or even for livestock purposes. In times
past, when people sought places to set up their settlements they always sought out areas with
a fresh supply of clear water.

Even though it is one of the most abundant substances, on the planet, there have always been
challenges to accessing clean supplies of water for basic domestic use. With modernisation
and population growth, supplies of clear water are dwindling or simply cannot keep up with
the increasing numbers of people, thus many people are found without access to water that is
clear enough for domestic purposes.

With all of this information it can be seen that the necessary action would be to develop a
system to clear water of suspended particles and other organisms that make it unfit for
domestic use.
BACKGROUND

In ancient Greek and Sanskrit (India) writings dating back to 2000 BC, water treatment
methods were recommended. People back than knew that heating water might purify it, and
they were also educated in sand and gravel filtration, boiling, and straining. The major motive
for water purification was better tasting drinking water, because people could not yet
distinguish between foul and clean water. Not much was known about micro organisms, or
chemical contaminants.After 1500 BC, the Egyptians first discovered the principle
of coagulation. They applied the chemical alum for suspended particle settlement. Pictures of
this purification technique were found on the wall of the tomb of Amenophis II and Ramses
II. After 500 BC, Hippocrates discovered the healing powers of water. He invented the
practice of sieving water, and obtained the first bag filter, which was called the ‘Hippocratic
sleeve’. The main purpose of the bag was to trap sediments that caused bad tastes or odours.
In 300-200 BC, Rome built its first aqueducts. Archimedes invented his water screw. In
the 1700s the first water filters for domestic application were applied (Enzler, 2006). These
were made of wool, sponge and charcoal. In 1804 the first actual municipal water treatment
plant designed by Robert Thom, was built in Scotland. The water treatment was based on
slow sand filtration, and horse and cart distributed the water. Some three years later, the first
water pipes were installed. The suggestion was made that every person should have access to
safe drinking water, but it would take somewhat longer before this was actually brought to
practice in most countries.
PROBLEM STATEMENT

Many Zimbabwean communities settled in different locations around the country are poverty
stricken and therefore cannot afford processed water or there isn’t infrastructure to supply
them with piped water. Several communities cannot afford to install boreholes, inevitably
resulting in limited access to clean and safe water for domestic use in many households. The
lack of clean and safe water for domestic use poses an alarming threat to the wellbeing of
families and children in impoverished communities, where medical supplies and facilities are
highly limited. This subsequently increases the rate of spread of water borne diseases in
communities.

AIMS

The aim is to design a simple cost effective machine capable of moving water from its source
or container, filter the collected water. After the filtering process, the machine should be able
to expel filtered water to a separate container for use or storage.

OBJECTIVES

1. The Machine should be capable of moving water to itself from a source of water
2. The machine should filter out suspended particles and organic chemicals
3. The machine should be capable of transferring water from itself to another container
LITERETURE REVIEW

Through out history, man has sought out better ways to collect and purify water for their use.
From long ago, engineers, scientists and inventors have been in an unending race to improve
water processing technoogy. In the distant past, it is sayed that people where constantly being
advised about cleaning of water for the purpose of improving its taste and clarity.
Experimentation of two Dutch spectacle makers who experimented with object magnification
led to the discovery of the microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in the 1670s (Enzler,
2006). He grinded and polished lenses and thereby achieved greater magnification. The
invention enabled scientists to watch tiny particles in water. In 1676, Van Leeuwenhoek first
observed water micro organisms. At this point the race really picked up pace as people had
realised the dangers that water posed to them from these microorganisms especially after
1854 when it was discovered that a cholera epidemic spread through water. The outbreak
seemed less severe in areas where sand filters were installed. British scientist John Snow
found that the direct cause of the outbreak was water pump contamination by sewage water.
Up to the discovery of Cholera, the most common type of water cleaning system was the
basic sand filter which was just a vat filled with sand and water was poured on top, and
gravity fed downwards to achieve cleaning. Another popular method of water cleaning
dating back thousands of years was the boling of water to sterilise it. Another line of thought
was the desalination of sea water so as to make it useable. In 1627 the water treatment history
continued as Sir Francis Bacon started experimenting with seawater desalination as he
attempted to use a sand filter to do so. His experiment failed dismally but the field of study
didn’t die as even up to today people are still searching for methods to desalinate sea water
(Enzler, 2006). The popular methods to do so are the use of heat, to evaporate the water
leaving crystals of the salts found in the sea. Another upcoming method is the use of reverse
osmosis and artificial membranes which can capture molecules of substances other than water
as water is pumped through the membrane. Another decently old method is flocculation
whereby certain chemicals are added to raw water so as to cause the particles and chemical
pollutants to coagulate and sink to the bottom of the container. An up and coming technology
is the use of ion exchange resins which can capture, in particular, heavy metals and chemical
pollutants from water.
METHODOLOGY
In the design and development of our project we utilised the following engineering design
process as described by (Khurmi & Gupta, 2005)

1. DEFINE THE PROBLEM.

2. GATHER INFORMATION

3. GENERATE MULTIPLE SOLUTIONS

4. ANALYSE AND SELECT A SOLUTION

5. TEST AND IMPLEMENT A SOLUTION

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Hand Pump.

In the hand pump design there is a piston placed in a cylinder that has two non return ball
valves placed near one of its ends. The side with the valves is closed off on one end. As the
plunger is moved up, water is drawn into the cylinder through the non return valve facing into
the cylinder. At the end of the up stroke, the cylinder is partially full and when the plunger is
pressed down , the water is expelled through the non return valve facing out of the cylinder.
Due to the orientation of the valves, it can be seen that water can only flow in one direction
with the repeated reciprocating motion of the piston. The piston is moved up and down by
means of mechanical effort applied by the user at both handles.
Centrifugal Pump.

Centrifugal pumps are a class of Dynamic pumps. The working principle of a centrifugal
pump involves transferring energy to the fluid utilizing a centrifugal force induced by the
rotation of an impeller that has multiple blades or vanes. In the centrifugal pump design, there
is a cylindriacal and hollow casing in which the impeller is enclosed. The impeller is a
propeller which when it rotates it can direct the flow of water into a desired point in the
casing. The impeller is made to rotate by means of a motor.

Bicycle reciprocating Pump.

This design is more of an improvement on the hand pump whereby the method in which
water is moved is the same as that of the hand pump, the difference being in the means in
which force is applied. The bicycle pump utilises a chain and sprocket mechanism that is
attached to a frame work to reduce the rotational speed of the drive mechanism, whilst
increasing power. The rotational motion is applied by means of either hand or foot pedals that
are rotated by the operator. The mechanism that then converts the rotational motion to
reciprocating motion is a simple slider crank mechanism.

Peristaltic Pump
In this design, a rotary motion generated by a motor is used to move fluid between two ends
of a flexible tube. In typical designs, the tube is encased in a semi circular enclosure with the
tube resting on the walls of the case. The setup is arranged in a way in which there is a
rotating spindle on which a frame which holds rollers is attached. The rollers are setup such
that they have very little clearance between them and the walls of the enclosure. This is done
so that a they squeeze the pipe at different points on its length, entrapping fluid between
where the pipe is pinched. As the whole assembly rotates, water is discharged in pulses at the
exit port
DECISION MATRIX

Weights Hand Pump Centrifugal Bicycle Peristaltic

As (%) system Pump reciprocating pump
system pump system system
Cost 20 35 70 20 40
Efficiency 10 50 30 70 15
Availability of 5 15 60 5 40
materials
Safety 15 80 40 60 40
Size and 10 30 60 10 60
portability
Hygiene and 5 5 70 5 90
aesthetics
Usabilty 15 15 85 20 70

Durability 20 20 75 15 60
Total as % 100 34.25 63.25 27.5 50.5

Our decision matrix is mainly focused on the pumping system we utilised because for all the
pumping systems suggested, the filter of choice is an activated charcoal filter.

FINAL SOLUTION
A 3d rendered image of the filter
A section View of the Pump
A 3D rendered image of the Pump
PARTS LIST

DC motor

PVC pipe(50mm)

PVC endcaps(50mm)*4

Rubber tubing

Cotton wool

Activated Charcoal

AC to DC powerpack

OVERVIEW
  The final solution is a system which comprises of many independent subsystems
assembled to achieve the desired performance.
 It comprises of a pump system which is a centrifugal type pump that is powered by a
dc motor.
 The dc motor utilises a voltage supply from a DC power pack(20V 2A) which is
connected directly to it. This is done because so as to increase the rpm of the motor
which is a prerequisitefor all centrifugal pumps
 The pump feeds into a flexible rubber tube which then feeds into the filter system.
 The filter is an activated charcoal filter which is combined with a cotton wool filter
for the filtration of all visible suspended particles and other organic chemicals,
leaving a sample of water that is fit for domestic use or which can be boiled to
sterilise it for drinking and cooking.
 The filter system is so designed so as to be capable of filtering large volumes of water
without consumables such that it can be used for filtering large volumes without the
need for replacement of its components.
 The filter comprise of charcoal powder packed between two layers of cotton wool.
 The cotton wool serves as the filter for all visible particles suspended in water
 The charcoal can remove some chemicals found in the water.

DEVELOPMENT OF FINAL SOLUTION

During the development of the final solutions, every component and sub assembly had its
own design parameters and thus was considered seperately.

The principle of operation of a centrifugal pump is that by the rotation of the impeller, water
is sucked in at the eye of the impeller(center of the impeller) and due to the rotation, energy
is transferred. .Rotation of the impeller forces the fluid (usually liquid) to circulate through
the pump from the axial to the radial direction while energy is transferred to the fluid
(Karassik, et al., 1986)

When designing the impeller of the centrifugal pump,we ran into three common design
configurations of the vanes of the impeller.

 The backwards curved impeller,

 The forward curved impeller and
 The straight vane impeller.

According to (Maiti, 2015) the backward curved impeller is the best of the three because it
results in the lowest pressure gradient between the faces of the vanes. This is advantageous
because the vanes need not be designed to handle excessive stresses caused by the pressure
difference and thus can be made thin and out of lighweight materials. Furthermore (Maiti,
2015) states that the use of forward curved or straight vane impellers is also disadvantageous
because they draw much more power for the same amount of water discharge as illustrated in
the graph below.
The other pump designs were eliminated for a variety of reasons. They had their own
advantages but they had major drawbacks which disqualified them for the purposes of our
project. The bicycle and hand pump had the major drawback of being too bulky , whilst the
peristaltic pump was a good idea overally, it proved to be too much of a challenge to acquire
some of the required materials and also some of the parts proved too expensive.

Then we also had to consider the filter part of our assembly. The filter comprised of finely
gound activated charcoal that was sandwiched between two layers of cotton wool. The idea is
that water is pumped to the top of the filter and flows under the influence of gravity and
pressure from the pump to the other end through the filter layers. The layers are so arranged
such that water gets to flow over the cotton wool first, which will trap many of the visible
suspended particles in it . Furthermore, the first layer also serves as a barrier to prevent
splashing of water as it flows into the filter from the pump. According to (Jern, 2021)
activated charcoal has the ability to trap chemical reagents in water thereby cleaning it of its
bad taste and odours. Activated charcoal has the ability to filter out chemcals commonly
found in herbicides, pesticides,and many other chemical pollutants produced from industrial
processes. In addition it also has the ability to remove organic toxins produced by
microrganisms that live in water. (Jern, 2021). There are many factors which affect the
quality of filtration, some of them being, the grain size and the source material from which
the charcoal was derived (Jern, 2021). The former has the effect of increasing the filtration
efficiency with fine powders being better because it increases the surface area for the
necessary chemical reactions to take place.Whilst the latter has very little effect but it has
been stated that charcoal derived from coconut shells has the best charecteristics (Jern, 2021).
The last layer of cotton wool placed between the charcoal and the exit port of the filter serves
the purpose of trapping the charcoal from being washed away as the water flows through it.
However the major drawback of our filter design is that it features cotton wool which is a
biodegradable substance that will after long use of the filter be consumed by rot and other
microorganisms that may be caught up in it. In addition, the activated charcoal loses its
effcacy after being repeatedly used as some reagents will consume it or detiriorate its
properties. Another drawback,which is partially solved by the pump is the rate of filtration by
the carbon filter. Due to the filter being made of fine grained carbon tightly packed between
two layers of cotton, it has a very low filtration rate.
References
Enzler, S. M., 2006. Lenntech.com. [Online]
Available at: https://www.lenntech.com/history-water-treatment.htm#:~:text=In%201676%2C
%20Van%20Leeuwenhoek%20first,Thom%2C%20was%20built%20in%20Scotland.
[Accessed 26 January 2022].
Jern, M., 2021. Tappwater.co/en. [Online]
Available at: https://tappwater.co/en/what-activated-carbon-filters-remove/
[Accessed 27 January 2022].
Karassik, I. J., Krutzsch, W. C., Fraser, W. H. & Messina, J. P., 1986. Pump Handbook, 2nd ed.. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Khurmi, R. S. & Gupta, J. K., 2005. A Textbook Of Machine Design. 14th ed. Ram Nagar New Delhi:
Eurasia Puplishing House.
Maiti, T., 2015. Mechanical engineering blag. [Online]
Available at: https://mechanicalengineeringblag.wordpress.com/2015/12/26/why-are-most-
centrifugal-pump-vanes-backward-curved/
[Accessed 27 January 2022].