A Quick Lesson on Rivers

In this blog post I will be telling you many things about how dirty rivers are a direct source of pollution to our lakes and how they get that way. Most people thing of rivers as another landfill to put their dirty garbage in. They believe that it wont harm anything because it's just a river. Well that is terribly wrong. Rivers as we all know always flow into another larger body of water. Most of the time they flow into lakes that millions of people drink from. For example, how would you like huge amounts of garbage from lakes pouring into a lake that you drink from each and every day. Well, it would not be pleasant would it? Now, what makes these lakes so dirty?

It really is simple to answer that question. Here are just a few of the reasons why; farmers put fertilizers and other chemicals in crops but when it rains they get washed away, most of the time, into a lake, some random people just looking for a trash can but decide to throw it into a lake, and industrial waste ,like cyanide, that goes into the lake on accident.  First let's look back to the point about the farmers. The pesticides that go into the water actually increase the amount of phosphorus and nitrate in the water. Which in turn leads to algae growing at a rapid rate. With this sudden boom in algae there is a big consequence. When the algae die they are broken down by bacteria which takes up all the oxygen in the water, and kills many animals.

I would say what happens when those things enter our lakes but I think you already have an idea of what would happen. This is why we need a filter to stop these harmful bacteria from ever getting near our lakes. Now, you know a bit more about what might be going into the lake that you drink from. With my filter we can stop this and drink 100% cyanide free lakes!

Vlog

Update

I have found a problem with my real filter. I cannot have the ion exchange process and the activated carbon in the same filter. Therefore I will have to make two separate filters that pour into each other. The top filter will use the activated carbon process while the bottom one will use the ion exchange process. I will be drawing up a design for my new filters very soon.

Prototype Filter

I will be building a prototype of my filter by April 2016.
This prototype filter will be using gravel, charcoal and sand and the motors will be propelled by hand.
I am using these materials instead of my original design because I cannot find activated carbon or ions to insert in my design and I cannot get a motor to insert into the motor.
The finished filter will use real motors and the ion exchange and activated carbon process.
My prototype will test my filter to see if the design is working and if it can filter the water.
I will film my testing of the prototype for you to see.
I will see if there are any flaws in the design will testing and will fix them so that it will work flawlessly.
All of my posts after this will be focused on my prototype filter.

Filter Update #1

I have now found out some minor problems with my design which will need to be tweaked. First off the charcoal that I will be using will need to be cleaned so that the charcoal itself does not contaminate the water. I also know that I will be using two types of filters that will become one. Those filter types are ion exchange and activated carbon.

Activated carbon will be put in my filter using charcoal which is very close to activated carbon and this process will take out chlorine-based chemicals, some pesticides, and industrial solvents.

I will be inserting the ion exchange process into the filter in order to take out limescale.

These processes will now make my filter extract more chemicals and other harder substances like limescale. For more a brief explanation of filter types you can visit http://www.explainthatstuff.com/howwaterfilterswork.html

Filter Sketch #1

First sketch of the filter

November Vlog