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Monday, October 10, 2016

Water filters- Are they useful?

For my second unit of Water which is a class where we talk about science and math, we had to build a water filter and test the pH before and after it was filtered to see if the filter made the water any better or worse. The materials I used where fish filter, gravel, sand, carbon infused fish board, activated carbon, and a coffee filter. I went to Petsmart to get these materials.

R.G(2016) Filter Sketch 
The reason I chose the bottle I did was because it compacts the materials together so no water can just go straight through the sides and not get filtered. The filter worked by allowing the water go through different fish filters, and when it passes through the various layers. The layers pull out smaller particulates from the water.  For example, I have an activated carbon infused fish filter that the water is going to go through. The activated carbon fish filter and the carbon will draw out the smaller particulates because carbon is a natural filter. This filter was built by first putting a fish filter at the bottom. I then put a coffee filter to hold activated carbon which is the next layer and then I put a carbon infused fish filter to have a better filter layer. Lastly, I put sand and gravel and an additional piece of fish filter to grab any other particulates. My filter is similar to groundwater filtration because I have some of the same layers. Some of those layers are soil, sand, and gravel.

R.G (2016) Water Filter 
After filtering the water with my system, it looked clearer, but there were still particulates at the bottom.  It did smell slightly cleaner, but when I took a sip of the water, it tasted like regular tap water with a rather nasty aftertaste.  The water did not have a smooth taste like bottled artesian or spring water. The water I filtered was Chicago river water; its pH is 3.9, but after my filter, it was 4.0.  The H+ level of the water before filtering was 0.000125. The H+ after filtering was 0.0001. The difference is 1.25. The pH scale goes from zero to fourteen zero being very acidic and fourteen being very basic. Seven is neutral, so my filtered water was a 4.0 which is acidic very acidic.

R.G(2016) p.H Scale Sketch

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