Guatemalan Community Purifier Prototype

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#ProjectPrototype 

Clean Water for the World has been working with the College of Engineering at the University of Toledo since 2015, building learning opportunities for tomorrow’s engineers, all the while benefiting communities that Clean Water for the World works with in El Salvador and Guatemala in the present.

Young girl in traditional dress drinking water at school.

Normally, purifiers are centrally located to provide viable access for all members. Often installed in schools, the access to the clean water the purifiers provide ensures that children are able to drink clean, drinking water every day.

We have experienced an interesting conundrum within our communities, though. Making a purifier centrally located works for those who live close. But, for communities who have water piped to their homes, it is difficult to ask them to walk to a purifier when it is easier to get it from the faucet in their homes. Battling human habits is difficult. And the continued ingestion of contaminated water puts the health of households at stake and puts a hindrance on our educational efforts within the communities.

We have often been asked by communities we visit while on Delegations if there is a larger purifier that can deliver water directly to the homes or a smaller, household version.  Therefore, in an interest to expand learning opportunities for engineering students and to pilot a prototype, a partnership formed between University of Toledo, Clean Water for the World, and Asociación Unidos por La Vida.

University of Toledo Delegation in March 2019 visiting Las Cruces with ASUVI and the Leadership of the Community.

In our conversations and continuous discussions with members of these communities, the idea of developing a larger purifier has been sincerely considered. This larger unit will be situated at a point of distribution in order for its purified water to be piped to the communities using the existing pipe pathways. This will increase access to clean water for these community members specifically by eliminating the need to travel outside one’s home to retrieve clean water.

This partnership with the University of Toledo’s Department of Engineering is essential to this project’s success. The students have already helped tremendously in fundraising, and have been playing an imperative role in developing the prototype itself. The prototype has been designed, soon will be tested and then reviewed within this academic year (2018-19). The finalized community-sized purifier will be installed in a community in Quiché, Guatemala during a CWFW Delegation trip in May 2019.  

Beautiful day to deliberate, analyze and make a plan for the prototype purifier at the community visit during Univ of Toledo Delegation in March 2019.

The aspiring goal of this project is to build a prototype that will encompass the capacities of purifying water on a larger scale, a community-wide scale. We believe that this project will enable CWFW to achieve new heights in further progressing our objective of helping to provide clean water for the world and as a nonprofit, this is why we exist.

In May of 2019, Kylee Kramer and Alison Haas, two graduating seniors of the University of Toledo in Chemical Engineering, led a delegation to install a prototype solar purifier that was installed at the community water system distribution tank.

In Guatemala, more than 90% of all water sources are contaminated, primarily with E-coli. According to the United Nations (UN), access to clean water is a human right. However, the UN defines access to clean water as being able to walk within a half hour to a water source. In the 21st century, with all of the technology we have access to, Clean Water for the World nor Asociación Unidos por la Vida (ASUVI), our Guatemalan in-country partner, considers this accessible. Moreover, potable water is not enough – ASUVI and CWFW are committed to making water safe, secure, and accessible.

The team reviewing the water pipe system blue prints before visiting the distribution tank.
A Mayan ceremony was performed to ask permission of Mother Earth to begin a new project that will benefit the community.

In July of 2018, ASUVI suggested the community, Las Cruces Tzajma, as the ideal community to receive a prototype large-scale purifier as they had recently installed their water system (water that is piped from a spring to faucets in each home in the community).  ASUVI provided the blue prints of the water system so that the University of Toledo Chemical Engineering Department Professor Glenn Lipscomb, and Honors Students Kylee Kramer and Alison Haas, could make initial analyses to make a preliminary design of the purifier.

In March 2019, during their Spring Break, students from the University of Toledo traveled to El Salvador and Guatemala to study access to water, install CWFW water purifiers, and get a cultural immersion in to the different cultures of El Salvador and Guatemala. While in Guatemala, the group visited Las Cruces Tzajma to do a more in-depth analysis of the future prototype site. After participating in a Mayan ceremony to ask permission of Mother Earth to begin this new project (seen on the right), students reviewed blue prints of the system (seen on left) before heading up to the site.

After visiting the site, taking measurements, reviewing the water rate, and assessing the site overall for the prototype, the group spoke with ASUVI water promoters and the Community’s Development Committee (COCODE). ASUVI and the COCODE (the legal representative of the community) discussed the options and voted to put a purifier at the entrance valve to the distribution tank. This involved some challenges including cleaning the tank, maintenance of the system, and what kind of materials the community would have to provide for the construction of the prototype.

Over the next several weeks, CWFW worked with ASUVI and Las Cruces to communicate the specifications of constructing a shelter and type of lumber needed for the purifier and solar panels. CWFW and the University of Toledo worked diligently to continue raising money for the prototype, finalizing the specifics of the prototype components and logistics of the installation week.

The team all arrived over the weekend of May 18 and 19. In Guatemala City, the team purchased plumbing accessories, 3 12v 200 amp batteries, and other supplies for the installation. The University of Toledo team brought the purifier components and the solar panels (a total of 6). On Monday, May 20, the team traveled to the community with water promoters, Miguel and Chepe, from ASUVI. Visiting the site again, the community had recently completed the construction of a shelter made out of concrete blocks (2.5m x 2m) where the purifier would be installed and had purchased lumber to construct the solar panel platform. The solar panels came in rolls and would be unrolled and pasted onto the wooden platform.

For Tuesday and Wednesday of that week, the team worked diligently with members of the community and water promoters from ASUVI to build the solar panel platform. It was a tedious effort that took time assessing the best location where the most sun would hit the solar panels and at a correct angle (17º) in order to get the maximum amount of UV light on the heaviest rainy days during the rainy season. Kylee and Alison had done a prior analysis of sun exposure, UV light data of the region provided by partner First Solar who advised on this project. After plotting out where the posts were going, they were temporarily erected to mark where they should be cut in order to best get the 17º angle. Located in a remote area, no electricity was available to cut these pillars with a traditional saw.  A neighbor came with a chain saw and, as accurately as possible, cut at the angle marked. After placing the posts in their spots, now cut, the frame was slowly built, adapting the structure as we went along. Lots of team work, loads of translation, and a lot of dedication brought this solar panel platform all together.

On Thursday, Kylee and Alison took the lead first laying out the solar panels and later installing the purifier components and the charge controllers and batteries. This also included pouring 10 gallons of bleach into the tank to clean out the entire piping system of any bacteria. A long and technical day, by Thursday afternoon around 5:30p.m., we first turned on the water to pass it through the newly installed purifier. Excited and relieved, everyone was happy to see water flowing through the system for the first time. Leaks were found in the piping of the purifier, which were rectified on Friday.

A more technical description is provided below from the University of Toledo Chemical Engineering Department Facebook page:

 

 

Looking up at the community water storage tank (upper cement structure, the lower structure is not used) and construction site. This 25 m3 tank provides water to nearly 50 families and is approximately a 20 minute uphill walk from the community – a strenuous walk at nearly 2500 meters elevation taken each morning. The solar panel array to power the UV chambers was installed to the left and the structure to house the UV chambers and solar electronics to the right.
The cement block structure to house the system will built over the cement cover to the right of the tank. The cover protects a valve that controls flow into the tank. The UV system treats the water which enters the tank. The tank was disinfected with chlorine prior to activating the UV system. The community was asked to flow water to each tap until they could smell the chlorine and let sit overnight to treat the distribution network.
Construction of the support for the solar panels begins. 15 4×4 posts were installed to support a wood platform. The holes for each support were dug by hand using available tools – crowbars and machetes. The local community helped with this day long process. Note the slope of the terrain. The goal ultimately was to have platform sloped at an angle of 15-20 degrees from horizontal facing south.
Each hole was dug to a depth of 60 cm. After constructing the platform, cement was pored into the holes to hold the posts in position. The project sponsor, Krista Dover, is in the middle of the photo wearing a gray shirt.
The posts were placed temporarily in the holes and aligned vertically to determine cut lines that would provide the desired angle for the platform.
Initial cutting with a hand saw, the only available tool, proved too slow so the owner of a chainsaw was hired to help. Cutting 4x4s at an angle was challenging.
The platform is complete. Sitting on the platform are Miguel and Jose – water promoters for Clean Water for the World – while Kylee walks toward the cement block shelter to continue installation of the UV chambers, plumbing, and electronics.
The finished platform with the construction team after two days of work.
The platform angle was ~17 degrees – perfect. Thanks Jeff for use of the angle measurement device!
Solar panels were installed on top of the platform. Six flexible panels were unrolled to form the array. Each possessed an adhesive to affix them to the platform. These Unisolar panels are unique in that you can walk on them without causing damage (this is how Alison and Kylee helped seal them to the wood) and have good low light performance. Each panel is capable of producing ~ 136 W at 24 V. Groups of two were connected in parallel to provide power for each of the three UV chambers. Children from the community were very interested in the work.
Alison and Kylee place a copper grounding rod for the system electronics. Sinking the rod was hard work as the clay soil was dense.
Three UV chambers with 5 micron pre-filters were installed on a wood support; one chamber is slightly hidden behind Alison and Kylee. The filter housings are clear but appear brown in the photo because of the dirt removed. Turning the system on for the first time led to some angst as nothing happened for a few seconds before a burp of air was followed by water flow in into the filters. Several leaks in the system provided additional angst. A cracked quartz tube in the UV chamber to the far right was easy to fix. However, the other leaks required cutting the PVC plumbing for each chamber and replacing the plumbing. Fortunately, all the fittings were available to due this and the replumbed chambers fit into the existing distribution manifolds without modification. This was a great relief after a somewhat stressful evening worrying about the effort that would be required to fix the leaks.
Kylee and Alison stand to the right of the electronics that connect the solar array, storage batteries, and UV chambers. Three separate systems were installed to provide redundancy – one for each UV chamber. The top row of boxes are charge controllers that manage the flow of electricity from the solar panels to the batteries and the UV chambers. The bottom row of boxes are fuse boxes with fuses for each component. Below the fuse boxes are 200 Ah batteries. The batteries were sized to provide power without charging for 1.5-2 days.
A door was added to the structure on the last day to secure the electronics. The previous two days members of the community had slept in the structure to prevent theft.
Alison and Kylee provide instruction on use of the system to community members.
Alison and Kylee add chlorine to the tank to disinfect water in the tank and the distribution system before consumption of the treated water. Community members were asked to flow water through each point of use of tap until chlorine was smelled and not use any water overnight to complete the process.