Sarah Levine is currently a Junior in the Environmental Engineering program, and co-wrote the paper, "Multi-stage polyurethane foam filtration for emergency point-of-use water treatment" with five AguaClara students and their advisor, Monroe Weber-Shirk. The paper was selected for a presentation at the AWWA's Water Quality Technology Conference in Toronto.
AguaClara submitted an abstract to the AWWA, before construction was completed or comprehensive tests had been run, and the AWWA accepted the paper. Sarah worked with AguaClara over the summer and was one of three students who ran the very first round of tests. Upon receiving fantastic results, Sarah and the other five members wrote the paper as a follow-up to the abstract. While the other students wrote about the preliminary research and theories that went into the project, Levine wrote about the construction and tests that she worked on.
"The project is a small, portable drinking water filter that could be used at the site of a natural disaster or for small communities that don't have access to potable water. The filter uses two vertical columns (multi-stage) that each contain polyurethane foam to filter out particles. In theory, the filter could be taken to a site in the back of a pickup truck, and be used to clean groundwater for drinking. Our ultimate goal is for it to require no electricity, but at this time we are still using power for turbidimeters. Based on the first round of tests, the filter is capable of reducing turbidity levels in water from 1000NTU or higher, to below the US EPA drinking water standard of .3NTU (we achieved levels as low as .01NTU in nearly every test). In the field, the filter would also be equipped with a chlorine drip for sanitation."
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