water purifier

by jenish
(chennai)

I did this experiment in my school days. Take a vessel with a hole in the bottom and stack the vessel layer by layer with fine sand, small pebbles, gravels and cotton. When we pour mud water into the vessel the various layer retain back the impurities present in the liquid and helps it purify.

Barry's Response - Interesting, Jenish. Although the sketch I included above is not identical to the model you describe, the principle is the same. Various layers in a multiple screening water filter carry out varying cleansing jobs, resulting in a substantially purified water outflow.

Some layers strain out the largest particles, leaving the smaller ones for the subsequent layers to remove. In succession, they all remove progressively smaller particles, until the final layer, the charcoal, which filters the finest particulates. Air filters can work the same way.

Commercial water purifiers use the same principle, to a degree. The ones I have used normally start with municipal tap water and have no large particles to deal with, as that has been handled at the processing plant. Chlorine was added to prevent the growth of bacterial cultures in the water during transport, and the job of the charcoal is thus to remove the chlorine at the point of use.

As a result, we have clean, safe and fresh-tasting water after passing through this set-up.

Search this site for more water information now.