Assessing the effect of powdered biochar on improving the efficiency of ceramic filters

Abstract

Water is a basic need for everyone around the world irrespective of their location or age in all aspects of life and for sustainable development. Therefore, water is a universal goal that the entire world’s population has access to water in the right amount, in the right quality and at a reasonable cost (Unicef, 2020). The lack of access to clean drinking water is an alarming public health issue both globally and at the national level. Most people especially in rural areas of developing countries consume polluted water from surface water sources because piped water supply is limited or non-existent due to limited financial resources (Akosile et al., 2020). Point of use water treatment devices such activated carbon filters, mechanical filters, ceramic filters, lifesaver jerry can, and ion exchange filters have been developed (Venkatesha & Kedare, 2014). Among the point of use water technologies, ceramic water filtration is a promising technology because of its ability to treat water without chemical addition and the use of locally available materials during the production of ceramic filters (Katengeza, et al., 2020). The objectives of this project were to characterize the mixture of various feedstock materials including powdered biochar in different proportions for production of ceramic filters, to fabricate a ceramic filter based on the characteristics of feedstock mixture, with an optimized proportion of powdered biochar, test its performance efficiency and perform a financial analysis for the optimized ceramic filter. FT/IR-6600typeA was used to characterize the raw materials used in production of ceramic filters and silicate structures (Si-O-Si), alumina (Al-O) and magnesia (Mg-O) octahedral sheets, hydroxyl (OH) stretching vibrations were found in clay. Hemicellulose groups, cellulose groups and lignin groups were found in saw dust and aromatic C=C bonds and aliphatic C-H bonds were found in biochar. Using Design expert, range for both saw dust and biochar were input and gave rise to 13 runs. The optimum mix ratio was found out to be 10%, 17.007% and 72.993% of saw dust, biochar and clay respectively. The removal efficiency for the optimized filter for river water, rain water and tap water were 90.6%, 83.44% and 67.88% for turbidity, 100% for E. coli, 100% for total coliform, 6.61, 7.68, and 6.53 for ph and 66.82%, 27.5%, and 72.8% for hardness respectively.