Water Technology Treatment Selection Guide - Spring 2015

Andrew Mullen and Sarah Sinclair

Abstract:

The Water Treatment Technology Selection Guide (WTTSG) team seeks to implement a webtool capable of providing recommendations regarding the efficacy and appropriateness of various water treatment options. This tool must be dynamic, responding appropriately to user input, and robust cross-­culturally, recognizing cultural and language barriers. It must also adhere to principles of human-­centered design, remaining accessible to populations with various degrees of skill while engendering a positive user experience. The current WTTSG team has continued the work of previous teams in creating a functional and attractive website. Significant strides were made this semester in passing data between pages of the site, the design and implementation of the results page, the construction of the administration panel, and the collection and population of data in the site. The site is now equipped to calculate regressions, provide automatic translations and log user input, and has been deployed on a MySQL-­enabled server. Future challenges include the tackling logistics of providing the best recommendation possible, while continuing to make the website’s recommendations scalable to new languages and technologies.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

1 L/s Plant Testing – Fall 2016

Yang Pei, Erica Marroquin, Alicia Barrientos, Manuel Queijeiro

Abstract:

The 1 liter per second AguaClara water treatment plant was created in the summer of 2016 for small villages where it was not cost-effective to build full-sized plants. It was the culmination of 10 years of progress in AguaClara and featured new technology, including a crimped pipe flocculator and a free-standing sedimentation tank constructed from corrugated sewer pipe. The Fall 2016 team began the semester with performance checks; the team tested for leakages, dosing apparatus precision, floc blanket formation, and turbidity removal. After the team reached the conclusion of a good performance and shipped it satisfactorily to Honduras, where the work will be continued. The flocculator was re-designed to improve the existing one and test were performed to check that it gave the expected head loss. Finally, it was built.

Small Scale Plant Model, Fall 2014

Serena Takada and Nick Cassab-Gheta

Abstract

During the fall semester of 2014, the Small Scale Plant Model Team worked on repairing the current small scale plant model and began using AutoCAD to 3D print a small scale model of AguaClara plants. The purpose of using AutoCAD to print models of AguaClara plants, rather than using Rhinoceros 5, is to automate as much of the printing process as possible. The team evaluated multiple methods of converting a solid in AutoCAD to a meshed solid. In addition, the team looked into alternative printers that would be more compatible to printing using AutoCAD. Eventually, the team hopes to develop a system where anyone can request an STL file containing the design of the most up to date design of an AguaClara plant at any flow rate. Upon request, this STL file should be sent to any 3D print shop to be printed.

Pipeline Cooling, Spring 2014

Alexandra Cheng, Apoorv Gupta

Abstract

The AguaClara water treatment plant in San Nicolas was inaugurated on April 5, 2014, and has successfully started operation. However, a major problem that has become apparent is the heating of raw water during the day from the source to the plant entrance tank. Raw water travels 4.5 km through a steel pipeline exposed to sunlight which has been identified as the likely cause for the temperature increase. Since the plant is hydraulic and gravity-powered, the temperature of the influent water affects its properties and behavior in the various stages of the AguaClara treatment system, particularly in the sedimentation tank. While the stacked rapid sand liter has been able to keep effluent turbidities low enough to be deemed acceptable, the resulting required amount of backwash places excess stress on the system; therefore, it is imperative to seek a method to maintain a relatively low raw water influent temperature to ensure plant success in producing potable water.

Demo Plant, Spring 2013

Eric Stucker and Jen Weidman

Abstract

The demo plant team is responsible for design, construction, and troubleshooting of the AguaClara Demo Plant. The successful operation of this plant is crucial in order to demonstrate the inner workings of AguaClara plants to students, faculty, staff, community members, business partners, and potential sponsors. This spring semester, our research team has focused on creating one complete demo plant, and fixing issues with that plant, such as an unreliable flocculator and concerns with differences in head. This work included implementing and testing new fittings for the stacked rapid sand filter, conceptualizing and implementing a more efficient way to facilitate plant assembly and startup to those unfamiliar with it, resolving issues with improper coagulant dosing and head loss differences, and properly documenting all aspects of the plant so that future team members new to AguaClara (like us) would have much less difficulty familiarizing themselves with the Demo Plant.We also measured and adjusted plant ow rates to match historical data and ensure smoother operation of the plant, and labeled tanks to further improve ease of operation of the plant. While we did not achieve our goal of fabricating new plants for future teams to use, we documented all the materials present, as well as those we need, and we provided detailed drawings for future construction.

Village Source to Environment, Spring 2014

Diana Kelterborn, Sarah Levine, Nicholas Parisi, Rachel Whiteheart

Abstract

The newly formed Village Source to Environment Team combines the design of a distribution storage plan and wastewater treatment system for rural villages in India. Current distribution infrastructure consists of an elevated tank that fills and dispenses twice daily, each time supplying half the village’s water needs. This method is inefficient and inconvenient, since villagers can only obtain water when the tank dispenses and must carry it half a kilometer to their homes. This system also makes it impossible to ensure that each family receives their designated share of water. Furthermore, due to limited access to water, villages improvise unsanitary household storage. They obtain all water for washing, drinking and cooking from these open containers, meaning the entire source can be contaminated any time they use it. Our proposed distribution system will 2 pump water directly into villagers’ homes, replacing the elevated storage tank with smaller household tanks. Each tank will connect to a sink for sanitary use on demand. Additionally, the sink’s drain will allow us to eventually integrate a wastewater treatment or irrigation system. Small villages with limited resources often lack sanitary solutions for handling greywater and blackwater; we hope future teams will investigate strategies for treating wastewater for irrigation. Our work builds upon capstone design projects from the Fall 2013 CEE 4540 class that focused on a distribution system for the village of Gufu, India. We revised the distribution design and planned to add household storage tanks, however the distribution system design took the majority of our focus this semester. This new team was formed to facilitate AguaClara’s expansion to India. The local infrastructure, community sizes, and therefore required flow rates, differ significantly from those in Honduras. As a result, the team must take a very different approach to the problem. The Village Source to Environment Team has laid the foundation for distribution design this semester.

Ram Pump - Fall 2013

Ruben Ghijsen, Madeline Haas, Kelly Huang, Ariel Seidner

Abstract:

AguaClara creates sustainable water treatment plans that are powered entirely from the force of gravity and hydraulic principles, making them completely electric-free. However since plan outlets are located at much lower elevations than the plant itself, this presents difficulties in transporting treated water back into the plant for filling chemical stock tanks and plumbing. The ram pump is an excellent solution because it utilizes the water hammer effect to pump water to a higher elevation than the source water and does not use electricity. Our ram pump is designed to be augmented in an existing plan in San Nicolas, Honduras, where the 750.0 L stock tanks will need to be filled in 3 hours, corresponding to a flow rate of 70.0 mL/s.

Dissolved Organic Matter Sensor, Spring 2015

Andres Larraza

Abstract

The Fabrication Subteam was created to address problem that arose in the AguaClara plants that are in operation. The Dissolved Organic Matter (DOM) sensor is a project that was created because in the plants in Honduras. DOM is a contaminant in the water that is present naturally due to leaves and other matter in the rivers being decomposed. The DOM in the water was affecting the required amount of coagulant needed to properly flocculate particulates in raw water by requiring more coagulant. The problem was that there was DOM present and we could not measure it properly. This semester, the objectives for the team are to have a working model that can use the RGB(red, green, and blue) values detected by the Arduino board to calculate the concentration of DOM in the water.. This is a first attempt that AguaClara is conducting

Ram Pump, Spring 2015

Pablo Nistal, Kadambari Suri, Larissa Sakiyama, Priya Aggarwal

Abstract

The Ram Pump sub­team was charged with designing and optimizing a pump to

elevate a small amount of water in the plants to fill chemical stock tanks and to provide

bathroom services. A common testing issue has been low effluent flow rate compared to what

is expected at the plant. The Spring 2015 ram pump team has designed a new ramp pump

system which allows users of the ram pump to adjust the size of the spring in the ram pump to

provide for maximum efficiency. The team is working on testing each part of the system,

seeing what can be fixed and changed, and then implementing those changes. The team has

found that ultimately springs of varying spring constants and lengths provide similar flow

rates. The team has also found that an air chamber greatly improves the flow rate of the

system and bigger air chambers provide better flow rate than smaller ones.

Prefab 1L/S - Summer 2016

Juan Guzman, Josiah Hinterberger, Juan Mantilla Quintero, Erica Marroquin, Disha Mendhekar, Ibrahym Sabha, Claudia Vesga Rodríguez, Victoria Zhang, Monroe Weber-Shirk

Abstract:

Conventional water treatment technology often have fixed costs too high for small communities with demands less than 5 L/s. The goal for the 2016 AguaClara summer program was to design scaled-down processes and fabricate an inexpensive 1 L/s plant. This pilot plant employs conventional flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection methods, but accomplishes each step using innovative materials and methods to maximize space efficiency and minimize cost.

Prefab 1 L/S - Fall 2016

David Herrera, Yinghan Hua, Sung Min Kim, Sean King, Felix Yang

Abstract:

Since January 2016, the Pre-Fabrication team has been experimenting with the creation of a 1 L/s water treatment plant. The Spring 2016 team successfully created a small scale version of the sedimentation tank and the Summer 2016 team fabricated a full scale plant. This full-scale plant will be shipped to Honduras in December 2016, and the goal of the Fall 2016 team is to construct an additional 1 L/s plant with a focus on streamlining and improving the production methods and accuracy. The team will focus most heavily on improving the methods of the flocculator and determining the structural integrity of the plant to confirm the validity of its design approach.

Microbiological Water Safety Monitoring, Spring 2016

Jacqueline Dokko, Janak Shah

Abstract

The ultimate goal for the microbiological water safety monitoring (MWSM) team is the development of a test that detects pathogens in water. The test must be of low cost (under ten dollars for each test), have a reduced incubation time from the standard 48 hours, and be able to be used in a low-resource setting such as Honduras. The team tested methods indicating the presence or absence of bacteria compared to quantitatively determining bacterial presence. Upon understanding the cost and efficiency of each method, it was possible to narrow down the methods that could be used as a model for microbial detection for AguaClara purposes.

Prefab 1 L/s - Spring 2016

Kimberly Buhl, Claire DeVoe, Meryl Kruskopf, and Felix Yang

Abstract:

The goal of the Prefabrication 1 L/s team was to research, test, and provide fabrication methods to be used when constructing the 1 L/s plant design in Honduras. The team worked on an approximate 1/10th flow rate scale model to design novel geometries for a low-flow flocculator and sedimentation tank while implementing known AguaClara fluid mechanic techniques. The cost per capita associated with these plants was calcu- lated to be much lower than plants built using traditional construction methods. Recommendations on design and fabrication methods were re- layed to future teams working on full-scale plant production.

Ram Pump - Fall 2016

Javier Paternain Martinez, Christopher Galantino, Luna Oiwa

Abstract

The purpose of the Ram Pump team is to design and develop a properly functioning hydraulic ram pump, or hydram, for implementation in AguaClara plants. The hydram can be used to deliver water from below the facility back to the top for utilization in chemical stock tanks or to collect water at higher elevations for alternative uses. The team’s goal for this semester is to find a practical method for measuring the pump’s flow rate and efficiency, to determine the effects of adding distribution piping to the bottom of the apparatus, and implement method to solve issues as they arise.

Grit Removal Innovation Technologies - Spring 2015

Annie Ding, Mary Millard

Abstract:

The current AguaClara plant design requires a large entrance tank to settle out grit particles prior to the flocculator. Grit removal by horizontal flow sedimentation prevents the settling of these larger particles in the flocculator (a phenomenon that has been observed in several AguaClara plants to negatively affect plant flow and operation). The purpose of the Grit Removal Innovation Technologies (GRIT) team is to redesign the current grit settling system by introducing plate settlers prior to the flocculation unit. In doing so, the plan-view area needed to settle out the grit will be greatly reduced, decreasing construction costs and overall AguaClara plant size. This paper outline the GRIT team’s process exploring plate settler design options that act either as sedimentation units only, or as combined flocculation and sedimentation units.

There is no other literature on the topic of designing such grit removal systems, and not all of the relevant parameters are well understood. The team’s design process has therefore been based on a series of reasonable assumptions and equations currently used in flocculator and sedimentation tank design. Many constraints (detailed in this report) were found to impact the design of the grit removal unit, including grit particle “roll-up” effect, optimal head loss, optimal unit length. In addition to the design of the grit removal unit itself, this team explored the corresponding designs of rapid mix, linear flow orifice meter (LFOM) placement, and coagulant dosing, in order to create a fully integrated system.

Over the course of the Spring 2015 semester, the GRIT team has developed three potential grit removal designs, created visual mock-ups of each, and even sent a detailed design of the best iteration to Honduras for implementation in a small-scale plant. The first iteration, a combined grit removal and flocculator system, integrated grit removal capabilities into the flocculator baffles, but it was rules out early in our design process due to the potential loss of coagulant to grit (as coagulant would be dosed before grit would be removed), inefficient use of space, and construction and cleaning impracticalities. The second and third iterations were both based on the idea of creating a tightly packed series of plate settlers (we call this a Grit Removal Unit, or GRU), analogous to the ones used in current sedimentation tank design, used before the flocculation process and designed to settle out grit specifically. The second iteration placed this GRU inside the entrance tank, while the third iteration placed it within the first flocculator channel. After analyzing space need, flexibility of design, and capacity for rapid mix/coagulant dosing integration, the third iteration was chosen as the optimal grit removal design and is well on its way to being constructed in Honduras!

Floc Size and Count App - Spring 2016

Christian Rodriguez, Anthony Verghese, Deniz Yilmazer

Abstract:

Turbidity measurements provide the primary source of performance monitoring at many water treatment plants. However, turbidity readings of floc suspensions do not provide any insight into the performance of subsequent treatment processes. The Floc Size and Count App team’s aim is to create and easy-to-use personal computer application that could measure floc size distribution using a digital camera with appropriate magnification. The app will be written in LabVIEW. The aim for this semester is to develop coding expertise in the LabVIEW environment and start working on the app that will be used in the AguaClara labs and eventually in AguaClara drinking water treatment plants.

Floc App - Fall 2016

Christian Rodrigues, Anthony Verghese, Deniz Yilmazer

Abstract:

Turbidity measurements provide the primary source of performance monitoring at many water treatment plants. Turbidity provides an excellent way to measure overall plant performance, but it does not provide insight into why the water treatment plants are performing well or poorly. The floc size and count app team’s aim is to create and easy-to-use desktop application that would measure floc size distribution and potentially provide insight as to why a plant is performing well or not. The app will be written in LabVIEW and made available for easy use as a stand alone executable application. The aim for this semester is for the team members to finish the LabVIEW program, integrate the program with a camera system, and have other teams test the camera system and software. By the end of the semester, we hope to have a functional prototype than can be tested by other AguaClara Teams in their experiments.

Water Quality Monitoring for Diarrheal Pathogens - Fall 2017

Ji Young Kim, Steven Lopez, Fletcher Passow

Abstract:

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.

Ram Pump - Fall 2017

Priya Aggarwal, Will Lopez, Ana Ruess

Abstract:

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.

Ram Pump - Spring 2017

Abigail Brown, Christopher Galantino, Ana Ruess

Abstract:

The purpose of the Ram Pump team is to fabricate a properly functioning hydraulic ram pump, or hydram, for implementation in AguaClara plants. The hydram is designed to deliver outgoing water initially flowing towards the distribution tanks back to the facility for utilization in chemical stick tanks or to collect water at higher elevations for other plumbing needs (toilets in the plant etc.) The team’s main goals for the semester are to determine which parameters are effective in allowing the system to work at minimal driving head as well as developing an audio-based diagnostic system for plant operator use in order to identify specific issues and apply correct solutions.