Date of Award

Fall 2024

Project Type

Thesis

Program or Major

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Degree Name

Master of Science

First Advisor

Robin M Collins

Abstract

Developing countries often use open-source water including groundwater, snowmelt, and springsas the primary source of their drinking water. These water sources increase the risk of contamination from bacteria and pathogens from nearby humans and animals. Ingestion of contaminated water can cause illnesses, and in extreme cases, death. While the technology to decrease or even eliminate the risk of contamination in drinking water exists, most of these methods require electricity, which is not necessarily readily available or sustainable in developing countries. The objective of this study is disinfection without electricity as a means to provide disinfected drinking water to developing countries. This study was designed to investigate the consistency of chemical disinfection in the form of a drip chlorination system. The specific goal of this study was to coordinate the drip rate of chlorine from an Intravenous (IV) Regulator and the flow of water in the system. This application and all corresponding system parts should be relatively easy to acquire, inexpensive, simple to install, and easy to maintain. Previous studies of automatic-adjusting drip chlorination systems have been conducted at the University of New Hampshire. The major problem with previous systems was an inconsistent or incorrect dosage of chlorine in the drinking water. In some studies, the amount of chlorine was too low to effectively disinfect the drinking water, and in others the amount of chlorine was too high, which caused inconsistencies in taste and odor of water, and increased the risk for Disinfection By-Products (DBPs). The system designed in this study creates a variable drip rate of chlorine based on the flow of water in the system. A higher flow rate of water results in a higher dosing of chlorine, and a lower flow rate of water results in a lower dosing of chlorine. This system allowed for chlorine dose model that has consistent values with variable flows of water.

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