Pictures!

Click on the picture to see it larger:

C

-This is what the granular activated carbon (GAC) looks like!

-GAC and "teabag" approach (will explain later)

-Up-close look at the different layers in a common sand filter. From bottom to top, it's large gravel, smaller gravel, little pebbles, big sand, and filter sand the rest of the way up.

-Wire mesh to keep gravel from clogging the drain in the smaller sand filter.

-This is the smaller sand filter, with the wire mesh shown.

-Here's our setup in the lab!

-Look how dirty that water is!

-You wanna drink that?

-Will it come out clean?

-I'd drink that...Ok...maybe not...but it's a good start!

-Remember when I talked about drilling the holes? Here's the tool we used. A drill bit taped onto a long stick. Fact: The greatest inventions in the world involve duct tape.

-Here's how it was done...very slowly...

-Up close view.

-Pretty bored at this point...(10 minutes to drill 1 hole)

-Ami, you try. Much more enthusiastic!

-These are different sieves. You can see the different size holes that we use to pick out the exact type of sand we want. Basically, you put a mixture of dirt/gravel/sand into the top and shake it for awhile. The different size particles will land on the different layers so you know their average diameter.

-These are sieve shakers. They provide the shaking power needed to separate the sand on the different layers!

-Washing the sand before we use it as filter sand. It's pretty dirty. If you don't wash it, then it doesn't filter the water as well, it's all full of nasty stuff already and won't take any of the nasty stuff out of the water.

-This is a lot better, and about what it should look like. If the sand is too clean the water will go through the filter too quickly and won't filter as well. There's a fine line between being TOO dirty and being TOO clean. It takes practice! (We got a lot of it)


Hope these were fun to look through! We'll have more later.


Mikell