DEVELOPMENT AND MODELING OF CERAMIC WATER CANDLE FILTER FROM OHIA CLAY USING RESPONSE SURFACE METHODOLOGY

REFERENCE 

APPENDICE

 

           

4.6     Pareto Chart of Standardized Effects

The human body is said to be made up of about 70% water (Dang-I, A. Y. (2010). This shows how important water is to the survival of humans. The importance of water is such that life cannot be sustained beyond a few days, without it. Furthermore, the lack of adequate water supply leads to the spread of diseases. Water is used in most human domestic activities and most importantly for drinking, which is a means by which the water level in the human system is maintained. For domestic uses of water, the purity of water is very important, since it has a direct relationship with the health and well-being of the individual using the water (Guy J.B., (2003). 

In Nigeria, where efforts to improve people’s access to safe drinking water have been marred by social complexes, most of the rural areas and indeed appreciable parts of urban areas do not have access to quality potable drinking water. This usually gives rise to incessant epidemics killing thousands of infants and even adults. It is common knowledge that poverty-stricken rural communities are still dependent on unsafe drinking water containing a high rate of pathogens that cause epidemic gastrointestinal diseases (WWAP): Perugia, Italy, 2009). Ceramic filter has shown to be a veritable tool in water treatment as the materials are locally available while the method of production is simple. Despite the abundant raw materials for the production of candle filters for water filtration, candle filters are still imported into the country due to a lack of awareness and inadequate engineering equipment needed to explore candle filters production from local raw materials, making candle filters expensive beyond the reach of the average man. 

Filtration is the separation of solids from a suspension in a liquid by means of a porous medium or screen which retains the solids and allows the liquid to pass. In general, the pores of the medium are larger than the particles which are to be removed, and the filter works efficiently only after an initial deposit has been trapped in the medium (Coulson et.al (2002). Filtration technologies are adopted to remove unwanted contaminants, especially suspended solids from surface waters. Filtration has to do with the flow of water through a porous medium. The water is purified through a range of physical, chemical and biological mechanisms (Moshiri. G.A. (1993), et al(2005). Ceramic filtration is the use of porous ceramic to filter microbes and other contaminants from drinking water. The primary materials used in the manufacturing of ceramic candle filters are clay, combustible, and siliceous materials or grog a non-plastic material used to reduce shrinkage and control porosity. The combustible materials are used to increase the porosity of filter media by creating voids within the internal structure after the material has been sintered during firing. As a result, the goal of this project is to design and produce candle ceramic water filters using an ideal blend of Ohiya clay, grog, silica, and sawdust. In addition, the designed filter's performance effectiveness on performance parameters of water pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), and total suspended solids (TSS) of the sample after filtration was investigated.

 

The problem being addressed in this research is the need for an effective and efficient water filtration method to combat water-borne diseases in developing countries. Despite the availability of various filtration methods, many communities continue to suffer from water-borne illnesses due to a lack of access to clean water and contamination from pollutants, water fetching and conveyance. To address this problem, this research aims to use response surface methodology (RSM) to optimize the design and performance of ceramic water filters as a solution to provide safe drinking water. The RSM will involve the collection and analysis of data on the effect of various input variables such as the properties of ceramic material, filter dimensions, and manufacturing process on the output variables such as filter's flow rate, filtration efficiency and pressure drop. The scope of the research will include laboratory testing and field studies to determine the optimal design, material and use of ceramic candle filters for this purpose by using RSM.

The aim of this work is the development of ceramic water candle filter from Ohia clay for household water treatment using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The specific objectives are:

This study was limited to the use of Ohiya clay for development of ceramic candle water filter. The process was designed and optimized using Response Surface Methodology 

Drinking water source contamination poses a great threat to human health in developing countries. Ceramic water filter treatment techniques, which improve drinking water quality at the household level, offer an affordable and convenient way to obtain safe drinking water and thus reduce the outbreaks of waterborne diseases. Ceramic water filters (CWFs), fabricated from locally sourced materials and manufactured by local labour, are one of the most socially acceptable water treatment technologies because of their effectiveness, low-cost and ease of use. Therefore, employing CWFs will be cost effective, eliminate importation, and improve employment through the local production of CWFs. The response surface modelling approach which will be employed in this study uses special experimental design with a small number of experimental runs to test the effect of several variables on all the responses involved at a time, which reduces the time and high cost of one-factor-at-a-time experimental approach (Kathleen et al. 2004).