WaterStudents develop low-cost water filtering system for African nation

In an effort to bring fresh water to rural Kenyans, Penn State’s School of International Affairs (SIA) students Kory Hansen and Jin Ju Kim participated in Penn State’s Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship (HESE) program to develop a ceramic water filtration system for parts of the sub Saharan African nation.

Every year, 3.4 million people die from lack of access to fresh water globally. In East Africa, daily routines include women venturing miles to secure fresh water and bearing the heavy weight of water containers to secure less-than-desirable water.

A Penn State University release reports that Hansen and Kim, replicated a ceramic water filter design from the nonprofit organization Potters for Peace. The goal was to use no more than two people, $200 and two days when they built the new design of the water filter, based on available resources in Africa.

The filters, which the students tested and tried on the Penn State campus, removed 99.9 percent of bacteria and reduced the community’s burden of water collection, which would be a major development in water sanitation if transferred to the rural, East African homes.

According to the students, the project was a continuous learning process. Hansen and Kim discussed the difficulties of having to not only take into account the engineering of the design but cultural, economic, and social considerations of the people as well.

Some stumbling blocks
The release notes that one of the distinguishable characteristic of the HESE students’ design was its incorporation of local African materials, purchased by native merchants to bring costs down and ensure the sustainability of the project in the future. Hansen and Kim encountered some complications with the processes, such as the inability to find silver, an essential element in making the filter.

“The filter itself, made of clay and sawdust, eliminates 80 percent of the bacteria and pathogens. When it is coated in silver, it reacts and makes it 99 percent effective. However, silver is probably the only thing not local, and it had to be imported from India or China,” said Hansen.

Adapting to the local materials which were not used in simulations within the classroom resulted in disappointment at times, the students said.

“The water didn’t go through the local clay very well. We didn’t realize the clay had to be prepared differently. We fired it at the temperature used in the classroom, and the mixture of sand and clay turned to glass and filled