WHAT-ER We

Drinking?
By Lucy O, Zane W and Nick L
Our beginning overall plan:

● Dam with turbine

● As turbine spins, heat is
generated
● That heat is used to boil and
purify the water that pushed
through the turbine
● The evaporated water is
collected as purified water
 Advantages of our plan

● Infrastructure is expensive, creating a 2 in 1 system for both reduce costs which

would be increasingly advantageous for poorer countries
● Furthermore, the lines for electricity and the pipes for water could run along one
another reducing the cost and scope of construction
● At first the plan may be expensive but it would pay itself off ten fold down the line
Purification Through Changing States
● When a solution boils, the
solvent evaporates (changes
states)
○ Solvent- the liquid that
the solute dissolves in
(In our case, water)
● Water evaporates,
inpurifications stay behind
● Boiling water purifies it
○ When water gets to a
certain temperature, all
microbes are killed.
How boiling purifies water

● The heat introduced to the water kills viruses and bacteria

such as E. coli, Norovirus, Salmonella, or Cholera
● Additionally the steam created is what is collected which is
then condensed into consumable water
● This is the most effective way of purifying water as the
changing of states to a gas rids the water of all bacteria, solids,
and toxins
Our Set-Up

● We chose to only model the

purification part of our water plan
● Dirty water was put in the flask on
the hot plate and boiled
● As it boiled, purified evaporation
traveled through the tube and into
the graduated cylinder
 Set-Up Data

● Heat level 6
● 50 mL of water put in boiler
● @ 4 minutes, the algae started to float

time 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30

mL 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 6 7 9 10 11 13 15 16

● After letting the model cool, there was a total of 19 mL of

clean water collected
Results
Total Iron

Before Testing: 2 ppm

After Testing: 0 ppm

For Drinking Water: no

more than 1 ppm
Water is more purified with less
iron.
Color

Before Testing:
Yellow-ish with specks

After Testing: clear

For Drinking Water:

clear
Visible impurities were removed
in our system.
Total Copper

Before Testing: 0.5 ppm

After Testing: 0.5 ppm

Drinking Water: must

have less then 1.5 ppm
Copper concentration did not
increase or decrease in our
experiment.
Chlorine
Before Testing: 0ppm

After Testing: 0ppm

Drinking Water: up to 4
ppm
There was no chlorine in the dirty
water before, so no chlorine was in
our purified solution. Chlorine could
be added for further cleaning.
Total Hardness (Calcium)

Before Testing: 400 ppm

After Testing: 50 ppm

Drinking Water: 40-80 ppm

Total hardness means the calcium
concentration. High calcium in water
can be bad because it can lead to a
buildup or discoloration.
Total pH

Before Testing: 9 pH

After Testing: 7pH

For Drinking Water:

Between 6-8.5
The water became more neutral
after purification. Before, it was
too basic to drink.
Overall conclusion

Our plan to use a turbine to purify water will work

because not only does it not require external
energy, but it purifies water by heating it, and our
tests and results confirmed that the system was
successful.