Project description
Demonstrating sustainable water purification
Rising population numbers and climate change are making drinking water resources scarce. To make drinking water that is free of pathogens and toxic chemicals available, a low-cost sustainable approach to water purification is needed. With this challenge in mind, the EU-funded Q.Dot-PurE-WatER project intends to demonstrate the favourable impact of a solar still on the purification of dirty water from the Ganges River. To do this, it will exploit quantum-dot rare-earth-ion-doped glass from waste phosphor lamps in order to re-engineer a solar-energy harvesting water evaporator and filtration system. The project will make advances towards sustainable water purification.
Objective
High-quality supply of drinking water is essential for maintaining good health and environment. The quality of water-supply infrastructure symbolizes the progress and prosperity of a nation. Increasing population overburden and unpredictable climate change on earth is making drinking water resources scarce, consequently large parts of tropics and sub-tropics are affected adversely. For making pathogen/toxic chemical-free drinking water available, low-cost sustainable approach for water purification is essential, especially in the impoverished regions of the tropics and sub-tropics, where the sunlight is abundant.
In order to provide solution for this crisis of drinking water shortage, my Q.dot-PurE-WatER MC project focusses on exploiting quantum (Q)-dot rare-earth(RE)-ion-doped glass from waste phosphor lamps for re-engineering solar-energy harvesting water evaporator and filtration system, called the solar-still as demo. In a demo solar-still, the Q-dot paint layer will be applied for enhancing black-body absorption for heating water to above 95oC for killing pathogens. The solar-still will also store energy by utilizing the organic lauric acid phase change mixture for using heat after sunset. The evaporated water will be filtered through photo-sensitized nano filter for destroying vapour-transported pathogens and chemicals. My goal is to demonstrate favourable impact of solar-still for the purification of dirty water of Ganges River in collaborative research training activities at the IIT-BHU in Varanasi, India and the St. James Hospital and Water@leeds in Leeds UK. This demonstration will be achieved as a result of four training packages including impact pathways, spread over 24-months, which will include six 15-days short visits to Varnasi, India.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwater treatment processesdrinking water treatment processes
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental scienceshydrology
- engineering and technologychemical engineeringseparation technologiesdesalinationreverse osmosis
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesmeteorologysolar radiation
- engineering and technologymaterials engineering
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
LS2 9JT Leeds
United Kingdom