Doris van Halem (TU Delft) and Lydia Senanu (Ghana) are developing ceramic water filters that stop heavy metals and bacteria – a locally made filter for safe drinking water.
Locally produced water filters mat be very useful in countries in Africa and beyond.(Video still: TU Delft TV)
Drinking water Professor Doris van Halem (Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences) and PhD student Lydia Senanu (University of Development Studies, Ghana) are working on improving ceramic water filters that remove heavy metals from water. Illegal mining is polluting rivers in Ghana with heavy metals, explains Senanu.
What makes their work special is that the filters are produced locally from local materials: clay and ash from burnt organic waste such as vegetable peels and fibres. The filters look like large semicircular bowls of baked clay. Sandwiched between the inner and outer walls of the clay is a carbon-rich layer of pounded ash that binds metals and bacteria. To what extent this happens, and what influences the filtration, are being researched in TU Delft laboratories.
The filters could be extremely valuable for countries in Africa and beyond. The video Ceramic Water Filters will be shown on Tuesday, 15 March 2022 at the IHE Conference Water Summit for Global Development 2022.
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