©2008 P'Clay® and P'Slip® / US Patent Number 5,726,111. Because there are variables beyond my control (selections clays, papers, water, mixing errors and etc) always pre test samples and use at your own risk.
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The Challenge in Brief:
Access.
It is a paradox. There may be some fine designs for water filters manufactured in prosperous countries. However, when these are imported to another country, "middlemen" hike the price into a "luxury item" status. Distribution to rural areas to the families who need them proves an issue also.
Ceramic water filters typically use burnout material that after fire, leaves openings too big to catch bacteria as small as e-coli. After firing this type of filters need extra manufacture time and materials like disinfectants to make them ready to use. Indeed research on the mineral content of the clays could result in a type of paperclay ceramic water filter than desalinizes water in future too. But first things first.
In comparison, paperclay ceramic water filters properly made, should come out of the kiln fire sanitized and ready to use, not needing the extra step that the others do. More funding is need to complete the research and fine tune the technical specification for the product line.
Rosette Gault
research areas
prototypes and models for packaging and products
industrial waste recycling inked paper, spent glaze-clay, and more.
building material & tile refractories
.
Research: Vision : Ceramic Paperclay Filtration for Cleaning Water
by Rosette Gault- Update January 2009
High pulp ceramic paperclay formulations will prove to be a durable and practical porous material for water filtration purposes. Ceramic and materials science engineers who can help refine the concept in practice are needed.
Currently, sawdust, rice hulls, and etc are successfully added to claybodies and fired away to make openings so water will flow through them. However the burnout pores are so huge that a second step of disinfection of the filters after firing was needed such as final bath soak in silver nitrate. Studies now can prove that much less Intestinal illnesses in families using ceramic filters of the type that Manny Hernandez (Dominican Republic), and others, now manufacture.
A granular sawdust particle is a room sized boulder if compared to a drinking straw size and shape of an individual cellulose fiber (found in paper pulp). As a result, If cellulose fiber is used instead of sawdust the interior of the paperclay ceramic filter will contain a network of small string-like capillary branches even though the outside surface will feel and seem unchanged!
I noticed the delicate wrapping of ultra tiny nano (nano: ultra small size similar to bacteria) fiber tendrils makes a rough surface texture around each each cellulose fiber tube. One-tenth of micron sized clay particles in water can easily lodge in-between the nano fiber during the mixing pulp and clay process as I described in my books.
After fire, the paperclay filter result is stable and porous. Now water borne bacteria can get trapped in the tiny voids left behind where the nano cellulose fiber used to be!
I compared and observed in SEM micrograph the size and scale measurements of bacteria (like e-coliform and giardia) with the size of the nano fibers in natural cellulose and the sizes of colloidal clay mineral particles. All of these different shapes are within the right size range to work together to mechanically stop waterborne bacteria from passing through. Nature has an intelligent genius design of a method for us to clean our water that has been there all along but without micrographs and other technology just couldnt be seen or understood before in this much simplicity! I am currently working on a paper that outlines the specific protocol for product development. A full set micrograph images of ceramic paperclay showing bacteria "stopped" in the voids of nano fiber is needed to verify my hypothesis. I seek a collaborator and funding for this next research step.
Once hard cold facts have are known about the porous material, we can know whether the the extra cost and time of a "disinfectant bath " is needed. Filters would emerge from the kiln fire sanitary and ready to use. Find more up to date info and early prototype pictures published in appendix and technical chapters in the 2008 edition of my book. More information forthcoming.
Use of paperclay further allows streamline in production because it has great thermal shock, it can withstand faster than traditional drying and firing stress, double the the green strength of sawdust clay, can be repaired patched at bone dry for less loss, can be assembled dry to dry and in differing concentrations of paper too.
Initial test in Nicaragua proved that paperclay ceramic as a water filter can work. Ron Rivera after the visit reported by e-mail to me 2004: Recycled paperclay water filters produced in the local low-tech equipment fired and tested with a correct filtration rate after only four recipe adjustments were tried.
To include the use of paperclay, especially sourced from recycled newsprint to the repertoire of technologies to choose from can save time, labor and money where its use is feasible.
It is with deep sorrow and shock I learned that Ron Rivera suddenly died this summer 2008 of malaria. We had been organizing another work period to fine tune the manufacture process. Anyone who wants to help carry on the work we started please get in touch with me.
To read obituary articles in New York Times and Guardian , "Solution in a Pot "
