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Hand-made ceramic water filters

Page history last edited by Deanne Bednar 15 years, 4 months ago

 

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Various websites on how to make your own

ceramic water filter and ceramc non-electric refrigerator !

 

 

How to make a ceramic filter from clay, coffee grounds and cow manure.

http://info.anu.edu.au/ovc/media/_pdf/ClayPotFilter_final_web.pdf

 

filters 

 

http://pottersforpeace.org/?page_id=9

Since 1998, Potters for Peace has been assisting in the production worldwide of a low-tech, low-cost, colloidal silver-enhanced ceramic water purifier (CWP). Field experience and clinical test results have shown this filter to effectively eliminate approximately 99.88% of most water born disease agents.

Why

Every year there are 1.7 million deaths, mainly children under the age of five, due to diarrhea caused by unsafe water. The U.N.’s Millennium Development Goal is to halve the number of people unable to reach or afford safe drinking water by the year 2015. Achieving this would require that at least 125,000 people be connected to safe water supplies each day before the 2015 target. Diseases related to inadequate water and sanitation cause an estimated 80% of all sickness in the developing world.

Safe drinking water is a precondition for health and the fight against child mortality, gender inequality and poverty. Women and children, especially girls, bear the burden of time spent collecting and transporting water, meaning less time available for activities such as school, essential to escaping the trap of extreme poverty.

This is the twenty first century but water and sanitation remain mired in the Middle Ages for one-third of the world.

Incredibly, this problem is still not being realistically addressed, high- tech solutions are proposed, but in general there is no investment in technology that can easily be copied by local workshops in developing countries.

The ultimate objective of the CWP project is to meet this urgent demand for safe water in rural and marginalized communities, and provide employment for local potters.

Potters for Peace is a member of the World Health Organization’s International Network to Promote Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage.

What is the CWP?

It is a simple, pressed bucket shape 11” wide by 10” deep, made with a mix of local terra-cotta clay and sawdust or other combustible, such as rice husks. The simplest press utilizes a hand-operated hydraulic truck jack and two-piece aluminum mold. The combustible ingredient, which has been milled and screened, burns out in the firing leaving a network of fine pores.

After firing the filter is coated with colloidal silver. This combination of fine pore size, and the bactericidal properties of colloidal silver produce an effective filter.

A benchmark filtration rate of between one and three liters per hour is attained by fine tuning the clay/combustible mix and firing temperature.

For use the fired, treated filter element is placed in a five gallon plastic or ceramic receptacle with a lid and faucet. Filter units are sold for about $10-15 with the basic plastic receptacle. Replacement filter elements cost about $4.00. Production and transportation costs vary from country to country and a basic shop with three or four workers can produce about fifty filters a day.

History

The filter design used by PFP was developed in Guatemala in 1981 by Dr. Fernando Mazariegos (second picture at left) of the Central American Industrial Research Institute (ICAITI). A study funded by the Interamerican Bank had the goal of developing a low cost filter which could be fabricated at the community level and provide potable water to the poorest of the poor.

Production began in Guatemala, using hand thrown filters from the potters’ community of Rabinal. PFP’s Ron Rivera encountered the Guatemalan filter design in Ecuador and worked on marketing it in that country.

In 1994 AFA or Family Foundation of the Americas, a Guatemalan organization, became interested in the ceramic water filter when it was found that other strategies were not yielding effective results. Chlorine tablets in rural communities were not well accepted; health complications associated with chlorine misuse caused additional concern. Boiled water often wasn’t effective when households failed to boil water long enough to purify it. AFA carried out a one year follow-up study on the initial Mazariegos-led filter project, concluding that including this filter into rural health education efforts reduced the incidence of diarrhea in participating households by as much as 50 percent.

In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch tore through Central America. It was one of the most destructive hurricanes ever recorded, affecting millions of people. Safe water was urgently needed as supply systems (already of borderline capacity and efficiency) had been badly damaged. This prompted Potters for Peace to begin a Ceramic Water Filter production workshop in Nicaragua using the Mazariegos design.

In the first six months over 5000 filters were distributed through non-governmental organizations. The workshop, called Filtron, evolved into a worker-owned cooperative and is now a privately owned business

Potters for Peace has since provided consultation and training in setting up production facilities around the world: Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Ghana, El Salvador, the Darfur region of Sudan, Myanmar, (Burma) and others.

The CWP has been cited by the United Nations’ Appropriate Technology Handbook, and tens of thousands of filters have been distributed worldwide by organizations such as International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Plan International, Project Concern International, Oxfam and USAID.

We have financed or assisted in laboratory testing and field studies of the filter with various institutions, among them: MIT, Tulane University, University of Colorado and University of North Carolina.

Project Description

Potters for Peace no longer operates filter making facilities or sells CWP’s but trains others to do so.

Typically an organization hears about the CWP through the internet or at a conference, contacts Potters for Peace and a conversation begins. If an organization demonstrates that it can meet PFP’s project guidelines they will contract a PFP technician for set-up and training with local potters. An on-site visit of at least three weeks is necessary. The cost of start-up varies according to what resources are available, as much as possible local materials and labor are used at a filter facility. An integral part of PFP’s filter technology is the introduction of a fuel efficient kiln design.

The projects are designed to provide profitable and sustainable employment, the local retail price of a CWP being set so as to maintain it’s accessibility to the poor and also provide a decent wage for the workers.

Education, health training and follow-up is critical to the successful introduction of the CWP into rural communities. From the beginning, however, Potters for Peace realized its limits in the area of public health and has relied on partner health organizations to provide appropriate training and education. PFP has developed materials in several languages, such as brochures, decals and a manual of procedures, to carry this out.

A functioning CWP facility becomes part of an ongoing intra-organizational filter dialogue, staying abreast of all related research and developments through email and follow-up visits when needed.

Filter Disclaimer

The Ceramic Water Purifier supported by Potters for Peace has not completed the process with the United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Pesticides to become formally approved to treat drinking water in the United States. Although the filter is proven to improve water quality by reducing protozoa and bacteria, sale of filters in the United States is intended only for research or use as an example model. 

 

Contact Kaira Wagoner, Filter Communication Coordinator

News

In 2007 projects were completed in Yemen, Benin, Kenya, Tanzania, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, 2008 plans include filter work in the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and several more tentative projects in South America, Africa and Asia.          

 

 


 

Examples and initiatives

150,000 filters are used in Central America, Asia and Africa.

CARE, UNICEF, Red Cross amongst others use the filter.

In Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cambodia the production of this filter is a commercial activity and production is starting up in six other countries.

 

Production manual

s189535770.onlinehome.us/pottersforpeace/?page_id=125

Movie

External links

 


http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002738.html

 

 

Refrigeration, the African way

http://www.scidev.net/en/features/refrigeration-the-african-way.html

 

 

Zeer pots

Zeers at the Women's Development Association in Darfur

Mohamed Majzoub

[DARFUR] Hawa Osman is a farmer in Darfur, Sudan. She grows tomatoes, okra, carrots, and rocket lettuce, and also has small orchard of guava trees.

In the hot weather of Darfur, Hawa used to lose half of the crops she hoped to sell each day in the market of Al Fashir, the capital city of North Darfur, because of inadequate storage facilities — and no electricity or refrigerator — in her small canteen, the shed made out of wood and palm leaves in which she displays her products to clients.

But these days she is selling fresher produce and making bigger profit. This is because of an ingenious device — the zeer pot — that was invented by a Nigerian teacher, Mohammed Bah Abba and introduced to Darfur last year.

The zeer is a large pot inside which fits another smaller pot with a clay lid. The space between the two pots is filled with sand, creating an insulating layer around the inner pot. The sand is then kept damp by adding water at regular intervals — generally twice a day — reducing the temperature within the inner post decrease.

Each zeer can contain 12 kg of vegetables, and costs less than US$2 to produce.

Experiments assessing its ability to extend shelf life show that tomatoes and guavas can be kept for 20 days, compared to just two without. Even rocket, which usually lasts only a day before wilting, can be kept for five days.

Amina Abas, who sells zeers in the Al Fashir marketplace, says that she has found a high demand for the pot, as almost every family accommodates a family of refugees from the fighting in the region.

 

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