Felix Yang, Lilly Mendoza, Ken Rivero-Rivera
The 1 Liter per Second (LPS) Plant testing team is continuing the work done by previous semester's Pre-Fabrication team by attaching the ESTaRS to the 1LPS plant and flocculator. By doing this AguaClara will have a complete 1 LPS Plant running in the lab so that experimental data can be gathered. This data will be used to optimize and improve current designs as well as further iterations of the technology.
Ji Young Kim, Steven Lopez, Fletcher Passow
AguaClara plants effectively remove turbidity and fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) from drinking water sources in Honduras. However, no study has documented the plants’ ability to remove specific diarrheal pathogen species. This study identified best practices for collecting and shipping pathogen DNA from sampling locations in Honduras back to Cornell University. A literature review identified options for filtration systems, chemical DNA preservation solutions, and shipping protocols. Tests of the clogging behavior of 5um and 0.1um pore size membrane filters demonstrated that this filtration method’s 60 h projected run time for a 10L samples outweighs its gains in simplicity.
Grace Zhang, Lois Lee, Srilekha Vangavolu
The Fall 2017 Sensor Development team worked on redesigning and calibrating the fluidized bed solids detector to be used for testing concentration of suspended particles in floc blankets as well as the submersible sensor designed to measure the height of the sludge blanket in the sedimentation tank.
Please note, no research report could be located for this team and the final presentation is linked instead
Priya Aggarwal, Will Lopez, Ana Ruess
The Fall 2017 Ram Pump subteam worked on mathematically modeling the ram pump’s mechanical behavior. Experiments conducted the previous semester proved that the ram pump does not operate as anticipated or desired. Ideally, modeling will explain this unpredicted behavior. With this knowledge, the team will be able to produce a more efficient and effective design. The team found a way to derive the forces involved in the pump, but more work needs to be done to determine what the optimal spring force is for the system.
