106: Small Scale Water Treatment

We aimed to create an on-demand, portable water treatment plant housed within a 1ft³ cube with a budget of $1,500. The spirit of our project stemmed from the 2022 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) ChemE Cube competition. The primary objective was to purify 25 liters of water per day adhering to EPA and international drinking water quality standards. As a humanitarian effort, our goal was to streamline water purification processes so that water-insecure regions can purify worst-case scenario water with minimal equipment and energy costs.

One of surface water’s challenges is the variety of contaminants present: dirt, clay, parasitic zygotes, viruses, bacteria and other organic matter. Individual contaminants can be resistant to certain techniques, requiring multiple purification strategies to remove or deactivate contaminants to reach drinking level quality.

Our cube features three different subunits: disinfectant, macro filtration and microfiltration. Each subunit targets specific contaminants present in surface water and is modular to allow for easy equipment replacement. We used an additional backwashing method to expand the lifespan of each unit.