Portable water purification systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Portable water purification systems - Essay Example With a fast growing world population, demand for water has massively been on the rise. The need for not only safe but also clean water ideal for human consumption has been a great challenge to the developing world. This has been further compounded on by contamination of the scarce water resources in those areas by various contaminators such as animal waste, human disposal waste, landfills, leaching and other industrial wastes. In addition, these countries might not have adequate infrastructure to enhance clean water supply. This report therefore outlines a marketing plan for the supply of water in one of the developing countries in Africa that has faced the problem of purified water supply- Sudan. It will outline how the provision of reverse osmosis units and portable purifiers for households in the country who have been worst hit by the problem of obtaining safe water for domestic use. Marketing of products for the improvement of living standards is an essential component for the se nsitization of populations that may be helpless and even ill informed on the modern and simple methods of purifying and conserving water for domestic use. A good example of a similar project in the area that has been a success because of appropriate marketing is the provision of mosquito nets in the area to reduce spread of malaria. Portable Water Purifier, Its Features, and Benefits This plan has considered various factors before it identified the most appropriate water-purifying product for promotion in the proposed area. The major factors taken into account before arriving at the best product included type and amount of water contaminants in the area, cost of equipment purchase, operation and maintenance costs, usability and the space needed for operation or storage. Portable water purifiers are simple household gadgets made out of locally available materials to enable as many households or communities as possible to have access to clean water. The product is designed to enable f iltration and purification of water through layers of pebbles that can be replaced with clean sand and then the filtered water is taken through a purification chamber where chlorination takes place. All of these are in a ten litres container that makes it possible to obtain safe and pure drinking water from the highly sedimented and contaminated water from the rivers and boreholes in the region. The portable water purifier is therefore a simple and manageable product that is easily adoptable by the population because of its straightforward use and the relatively lower costs of purchase and maintenance. It has three main components in terms of the sections that make its purification, filtration and storage functions possible. First is the filtration segment or compartment that is at the top most section of the container. This has been placed next to the opening where the water to be purified is poured in through. It originally comes with clean pebbles for sedimentation of foreign par ticles mostly found in water harvested from rivers and other water sources in the region. The flow of water into the filtration chamber is regulated by a narrowly designed opening so that the filtration process is gradual and hence all particles are eliminated at this stage. The adjacent chamber is that of chlorination or purification through sterilization. There are granules in this chamber that aid in this method. To ensure that this is cost effective, the