Can I Drink That Water?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective was to test different methods to disinfect pond water. The goal was to make pond water safe to drink. Methods/Materials Methods: 1) Collect pond water. 2) Prepare incubator plates. 3) Apply four different methods (UV, boil, iodine, home-made filter) to pond water and plate samples. 4) Incubate plates and observe changes over three days including photography and colony count. Materials: 5 agar plates; 5 MacConkey agar plates; 10 cups of pond water; Ultra Violet wand; Stove; Iodine tablets; Sand; Activated Charcoal; Coffee filter; Thermometer; Incubator; Camera and readily available household supplies. Results The Ultra-violet and boiling method both disinfected the water. The filter did not remove E. coli bacteria. The iodine removed E. coli but not other bacteria. Conclusions/Discussion I was correct in hypothesizing that the homemade filter would not be very effective. However, my hypothesis about iodine was wrong. The iodine did not remove much bacteria. If I did this experiment again, I would screen out large particles prior to treatment and use more activated carbon in my filter.

Competition history

• CSEF 2015 Environmental Engineering · Entry J1005

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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