How Rust and Simple Science are Saving Lives by Creating Clean Drinking Water

Posted by: Mike Pallante on April 27, 2011 at 9:50AM
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Engineers Without Borders Help Millions in Developing Nations

When the Mayan community in Socorro, Guatemala developed severe gastrointestinal diseases from poor drinking water they turned to Engineers without Borders for relief. Engineers without Borders, dubbed the Blueprint Brigade by Time Magazine, is an organization of over 12,000 members dedicated to improving the world by applying their engineering skills and providing basic infrastructure to developing nations. EWB developed the biosand filter (BSF), a simple water filter which removes 95 to 99% of organic contaminates, and distributed over 300,000 to over 70 countries worldwide. Unfortunately BSFs are highly effective against everything but viruses.

People Prosperity and the Planet Encourage Students to Solve Real World Problems

That's when a group of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign took part in the EPA's People Prosperity and the Planet campaign (P3). The P3 is like a science fair where the projects change lives. It encourages students to find design solutions to real world problems. The students at UIUC took on the challenge of making existing water filter design more effective against viruses. The solution they devised was both low tech and low cost and more importantly, highly effective.

College Students Use Simple Science to Solve the Problem

University of Illinois students found that introducing Iron shavings into contaminated water is 99.99% effective in removing viruses. When Iron shavings rust they release positively charged oxides. Negatively charged viruses attach to positively charged rust. As the Iron shavings do not pass through BSF filter the viruses never make it out of the filter.

In 2009 UIUC students worked on a P3 funded project to install 120 BSFs in Socorro. In the past two years they've partnered with other research teams to introduce the Iron-amended filters to the people of Socorro. Since the project is very low-tech and iron is a common commercial commodity researchers hope to develop a system for amended iron-filters that locals can employ themselves. If the systems are effective then worldwide scalability of the concept could help provide clean drinking water to millions.

Diagnosing Disease with Low-Cost-Low-Tech Solutions

Curing disease with rust is not the first low-cost, low-tech, iron-centric concept to have an impact in developing nations. In developing nations electricity can be scarce. Among other problems this makes diagnosing diseases like anemia, lack of iron in the blood, difficult. In 2010 two students at Rice University developed a blood-separating centrifuge that was durable and cost under thirty dollars to produce. They combined household items, including a salad spinner, which allows doctors to manually spin vials of blood and separate blood cells from plasma, making it easy for doctors to diagnose anemia and other diseases.

To developing nations finding low cost solutions for high tech problems means more than just an increase in the standard of living - it means the difference between life and death. Programs such as Engineers without Borders, the P3 and even individual teachers in individual classrooms are making a difference every day by applying simple science to complex problems.