Engineers for a Sustainable World will fund the redesign and improvement of rural Thai villages’ current systems for clean water, sanitation, irrigation, and hydro-electric power. The members of this project have split into four subgroups based on different areas of expertise: Purification, Irrigation, Hydroelectricity, and Bioenergy Teams. These groups will perform research aiming to innovate technologies and systems, provide practical and technical knowledge to the members of these villages, and come up with designs for construction in Thailand.
The Purification Team aims to design and develop a low-technology, economical, and high-efficient method to filter contaminated water and provide families in a Thai village with a reliable source of clean water. Currently, the team is designing a process of collecting and disinfecting water that begins with a rain harvesting collector, which connects to a sand filtration system, and ends at a chamber where UV-C light will be emitted. Implementing rain harvesting collectors will take advantage of the six-month long rain season of Northern Thailand, while the sand filter can remove bigger particles in the water. Finally, the UV-C radiation will kill pathogenic bacteria and viruses in the water, turning infected water to drinkable water. Some of the team will be traveling to Northern Thailand into the villages to survey the area in order to tailor our design to the local conditions. Our ultimate goal is to put together a purification system that is feasible to not only one village, but villages in other parts of Thailand.
Please follow us for weekly updates of team and project progress @ http://eswthailandpurification.wordpress.com!
The Irrigation Team
Rainwater harvesting is a method of collecting water from rooftops, paved areas, etc., and filtering it to provide usable water for various uses. In Thailand, the months from May through October produces the most amount of water, averaging 210mm of rainwater per month in Bangkok. The Irrigation team is currently developing a rainwater harvester to collect that water throughout the wet season and deliver it for the rest of the remaining year when water is scarce. That water is then delivered to the homes using pressure pumps, which keeps the water clean, pure, free of debris, and keeps the maintenance to a minimum. Furthermore, the team is trying to provide other forms of water collection, through methods such as catching hillside water run-off. This system has many sustainable benefits; by harnessing a good quality water source that would otherwise flood cities, it instead prevents groundwater from being overly piped, helps prevent soil erosion in mountainous villages, and is an inexpensive and simple technology perfect for everyday use.
The Hydroelectricity Team
The Hydroelectricity team has the goal to design an alternative and cheaper solution for hydroelectric power utilizing the waterfall near the village. Some difficulties that the team is currently encountering are missing specific parameters and details for the waterfall’s flow rate and width. Currently the team is working around these obstacles by using approximations for the size of the waterwheel and where one can install it. The team is now looking at different design options, such as a waterwheel with diameters and thickness to fit within the waterfall, using either PVC or wood, and positioning the waterwheel at different points along the waterfall that will provide different amounts of energy. The Generator team will build its own electronic system that will include an inverter, a charge controller, a bridge rectifier, and other elements. Similarly, a solution is also needed to store the energy in a battery bank so that the homes can use the energy when the waterfall is providing a lower flow rate. The team’s goals for this quarter are to provide the client with different designs and estimate each design’s budget so that the best option can be choose for its cost, durability, and ease of maintenance.
The Bioenergy Team
The Bioenergy subteam is seeking to utilize biological “waste” (eg fecal matter, dead plant matter, ash, etc) in a biogas digester to produce biogas (60% methane, 40% carbon dioxide). Specifically, bacteria cultivated in the anaerobic environment of a biogas digester break down the biomass and release methane, which can then be stored and harnessed for energy. The Bioenergy team is looking in to using the biogas for clean cooking fuel, as well as possibly filtering out other gases and upgrading it to pure methane, so it could be used in electricity generation.
The Bioenergy team is currently researching four relevant areas:
Anaerobic decomposition: how to provide the optimal environment for the methane-producing bacteria, including temperature, pH, stirring, depth, and C:N ratio
Biogas digester design, including materials, size, cost, and construction
Harnessing biogas, including capturing, purifying, and transport
Using biogas, including electricity generation, generator design, and cooking.
