Over the past week, Ami and I have been preparing the sand for our models of the biosand filters (BSF) we're going to make. We wanted to make it as close as we could to what is found in Nicaragua so we ran a sieve analysis to get the correct size & gradation of the sand. We also washed the sand and have been drying it in the sun all week.
To reduce costs, we are trying to use the materials available in the environmental lab here at Santa Clara University. We had planned on using two glass columns (glass is inert and won't react with anything in the water) that we found in the lab. Turns out, they were designed to be used for something completely different than what we were trying to do. I believe they are for chemical purposes because there was a ceramic layer in the column that would not even allow water to go through! The pore sizes must be rather small. We got the OK from our adviser to go ahead and drill through the ceramic part of the glass column so that we can use it for our purposes. I'll throw up some pictures tomorrow when we drill to show you exactly what I'm talking about. It's hard to explain!
Mikell
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