Filtering Water, A Brain Teasing Task

                                  

                                        Filtering Water, A Brain Teasing Task

            Have you ever filtered water or wondered how it gets filtered? If you have I think you will enjoy this blog post. Hello, my name is K.W and for the past 2 weeks, in my water class, I have been learning about filtering water. I have learned the steps and the tedious measures to filter water from the water plant to twisting the water faucet. There are many steps and precautions that happen just to make sure you have potable drinking water. While reading this you may ask yourself, Why is filtering water important? Water filtration is important because at least 2 billion people have dirty drinking water. While people in more fortunate countries waste water every day without even realizing it. 

    The process of filtering water can be similar to trial and error. Before I started my experiment I created a sketch, a question, and a hypothesis. How can I clean water using materials at home and on a molecular level? And my hypothesis was that I can clean the water but it wouldn't be completely filtered. The materials I used were a plastic water bottle, scissors, foam beads, a measuring cup, rocks, minced banana peel, dirty water, a mask, and a TDS measurer. Firstly I cut the water bottle in half and took the top half of the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and flipped it over on top of the bottom half. Then I cut the mask and placed the mesh inside the bottle, next I placed the rocks on top of the mesh, then I took another layer of mesh and placed the minced banana in that layer. Next, I took another layer of mesh and placed it over the minced banana, and covered it with foam beads. Now I was ready to test, so I poured my dirty water into my filter twice and then measured the TDS. To my surprise my TDS was actually higher, meaning my filter didn't work. Before my TDS was 925 and after it was 1028 meaning my TDS went up by 103 and 11.14%.  

    In conclusion, if I were to do this again I would remove the foam beads and rocks and replace them with leaves and activated charcoal. Overall I had fun and I feel more educated on water filtration. 

 before water TDS 925

 after TDS 1028