P07401: EPA Water Disinfection Project
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Project Readiness Package

Headline text

Table of Contents

Administrative Information

Project Name
EPA Water Disinfection Project
Project Number
P07401
Project Family
P07400 Sustainable Technologies for the Third World
Project Track
Sustainable Products, Systems, and Technologies
Start Term
2006-2
End Term
2006-3
Faculty Guide
Dr. Rob Stevens (Mechanical Engineering)
Faculty Consultant
Dr. Margaret Bailey (Mechanical Engineering);
Dr. Andres Carrano (Industrial and Systems Engineering);
Dr. Brian Thorn (Industrial and Systems Engineering)
Primary Customer
Dr. Rob Stevens (ME) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Secondary Customers
End User - People residing in rural areas of third-world countries, who do not have access to safe drinking water.
Customer contact information
Dr. Rob Stevens
Mechanical Engineering
rjseme@rit.edu

Project Overview

The mission of this student team is to design, build and test a novel solar pasteurizer. Solar pasteurization is based on the principle of using solar energy to thermally kill pathogenic protozoan, bacteria and viruses at temperatures below the boiling point. This project will use solar pasteurization as a means of treating water in remote rural areas without electrical power.

Staffing Requirements

Staffing
Team Member Discipline Role / Skills email address
TBD ME Faculty Guide, Will work closely with the team on an on-going basis to facilitate success. wwweme@rit.edu
Dr. Rob Stevens ME Faculty Consultant, Will provide overall technical guidance on the project. rjseme@rit.edu
Dr. Maragret Bailey ME Faculty Consultant, Will provide ME discipline and Sustainable Systems technical support on an intermittant basis. mbbeme@rit.edu
Dr. Andres Carrano ISE Faculty Consultant, Will provide overall technical support since he is interested in a alternate solution to the same problem. alceie@rit.edu
Dr. Brian Thorn ISE Faculty Consultant, Will provide overall technical support since he is interested in a alternate solution to the same problem. bkteie@rit.edu
Sang Lee ME Team Leader ssl2914@rit.edu
TBD Student (Elaine) ME Thermal/Heat Transfer Analysis
TBD Student (Kellen) ME Thermal/Heat Transfer Analysis
TBD Student (Drazen) ME Material Analysis, Procurement, Fabrication
TBD Student ME Data Acquisition & Thermal Performance Testing
TBD Student ISE Process Flow
TBD Student ISE Product Design

Some additional roles of the people involved in the project (according to Dr. Stevens) might be:

Continuation, Platform, or Building Block Project Information

This project is listed in the Sustainable Products, Systems and Technologies Track of Projects. This track of projects embodies sustainable principles; that is, they accomplish their goals without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

The EPA Water Disinfection Project is part of the Third-World Family of Projects. This is due to the fact that its main goals pertain to helping the people of the developing world.

Some background information for the reasoning behind this project is as follows:

According to the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and the WHO/UNICEF, some 1.1 billion people are without access to safe drinking water. More than 5 million people die from the lack of safe water and improper sanitation every year. Children are the primary victims. This cuts short their opportunity to grow-up and be productive and contributing citizens in their communities.

Although there has been significant progress over the past decades to improve access to safe water in urban areas, most of the existing systems are not suitable for rural applications where populations are more dispersed and electrical power is unpredictable or nonexistant. A range of alternative water technologies are required to fully address the needs of rural areas.

This project is designed to further develop a solar pasteurizer as a means of treating water to be used in developing countries, specifically in South America, where on average 45% of population is below the poverty line and 36% live in rural settings where safe water/power may not be available.

This roadmap will be initiated during the Fall Quarter, 2006-1, with other closely related projects, as listed below.

Related Project Title Start Term End Term
P07400 Sustainable Products, Systems, and Technologies Track 2006-1 On-going
P07402 ISE Water Disinfection Project 2006-2 2006-3
P07403 Eze Kamanu's Garri Processing Project 2006-2 2006-3

!!!!!!Need to make links work above !!!!!

Principle Sponsor or Sponsoring Organization

Support for this project has been provided by the EPA.

Support for this project has been provided by the EPA.

This project is being sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The project has been awarded a $10,000 grant and is entered in the People, Prosperity and Planet (P3) Student Design Competition for Sustainability. In addition to the Senior Design deliverables, there are also some deliverables for the EPA. However, this project does involve a trip to Washington, DC at the end of the school year to present a report on the team's achievements with respect to the stated projects purposes and objectives.

!!!!!Have picutre saved in my directory, need to learn how to post it !!!!!!

Detailed Project Description

Customer Needs

Interactions with Customers

Interview with Dr. Stevens

Friday September 22, 2006

The following interview is a paraphrased version of the interview that was conducted. It serves the purpose of allowing students who are interested in the project to understand the types of questions that were asked and the type of responses that were given.

Question: Could you share with me your overall vision of what exactly the Dr. Rob Stevens' Water Disinfection Project is all about? What are some of the target objectives?

Answer: Well, basically it is about developing a solar pasteurizer to disinfect water in rural areas or where people do not have access to safe drinking water. Solar pasteurization treats the water by using solar energy to thermally kill bacteria and viruses below the boiling point. We actually have an EPA grant for this project, so I can show you the proposal for some more background information.

Question: Could you comment on the "customers" that we are targeting for this project? What type of people are we producing this product for? For example, from what type of economic and educational background are our "customers"? Also, where are these people from and where will this product be put to use?

Answer: Yes, the end user for this project will generally be people living in third world countries. Most likely these people will be living in rural areas and possibly without electricity as a power supply. As far as educational background, that is important because we want our end product to be rather low maintenance. We have to make it easy to use, so that the end user does not need to be educated on how to work the product. We want to be able to regulate flow, possibly with some type of auto thermostate valves

Question: What types of resources do we have to work with? How many people might be involved in this project? What kind of equipment do we have readily available to us for use? Are there any types of time constraints?

Answer: Well, we have a $10,000 grant from the EPA for the project; however, about half of that money will be needed for a trip to Washington, D.C. to present the project at the end of the year. So we should plan on working with about $4,500 for materials and data acquisition equipment and supplies. I actually have a computer that I am willing to dedicate to the project for data acquisition purposes. As far as physical space, I have not set anything up yet, we will have to work on that. But, we will need some outdoor space as well for testing purposes in addition to whatever indoor space we will need.

Question: Now from an engineering standpoint, what are the fundamental functions or core purposes of the product? What methods of disinfections are going to be used?

Answer: Like I said before, solar pasteurization will be used as the means of disinfecting water. We will assume that there is no electrical power available. There have been other attemps at using solar pasteurization technologies for water disinfection, however, they were based on batch systems and showed marginal throughput. We want to get higher production rates by allowing continual flow through the system. We can do this by using simple flow control devices and recover the heat from the treated water.

Question: What is the water source that we are disinfecting? Where does this water come from? What is wrong with it? Who is drinking from this water?

Answer: Well, it is just unsafe water. I could not really tell you what exactly is wrong with it. We have partners in Venezuela that are interested in the project as well. They can give you more information on the water sources and what exactly is wrong with it.

Question: Are there any auxiliary functions that you are wishing that this product will have?

Answer: Well, like I said before, we want it to be easy to operate. We also want continual flow to produce more throughput.

Question: What type of user functions will be involved? Is this going to be a househeld product? Who is going to run this water disinfection system?

Answer: Solar pasteurization is potentially well suited for home, school, and small health clinic applications. The students will have to decide on exactly what type of product it will be, as far as how large and stuff like that. The end user will essentially be the one running the product and it will have to be developed with whatever resources are available to these people in under-developed rural areas.

Question: I was also interested in the ISE Water Disinfection Project, which I believe is being run by Dr. Carrano. However, Anna Murray asked for that project before I was able to do so. Are there any similarities between these two projects? Are they serving the same purpose? Can there be any colloboration between these two projects?

Answer: Yes, these two projects are essentially serving the same purpose - to disinfect water in third world countries. I actually met with Anna and Andres yesterday to discuss their project. I was thinking that the two projects could work together on the post-treatment testing procedures. This would be a good area for the two groups to work together, because there is really no point in them doing two different quality testing procedures.

Interpretation of Raw Data in Terms of Customer Needs

Hierarchical Customer Needs

After listing the needs in list order here, this is a great place to include an objective tree as a graphical representation of your interpretation of the customer needs.

Relative Importance of the Customer Needs

Needs Summary
Need The Product Needs to Importance
Need 1.1 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Must use resources that are readily available in the developing world. 9
Need 1.1a Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Must not require specialized system components to be imported. 9
Need 1.2 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Use fabrication techniques readily available in the developing world. 9
Need 1.3 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Must function without electrical power. 9
Need 1.4 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Must not require scarce fuel wood. 3
Need 1.5 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will not use chlorine. 3
Need 2.1 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will disinfect the water source available to that area. 9
Need 2.2 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will thermally kill pathogenic protozoan, bacteria, and viruses in the water below the boiling point. 9
Need 2.3 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will be able to handle sediment in the water. 3
Need 2.4 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will regulate water flow. 9
Need 2.5 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will be failsafe. 9
Need 2.6 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will entail a treated water testing system to ensure a quality end product. 9
Need 3.1 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will be effective on differnet sources of water. 9
Need 3.2 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will work for either home, school, or small clinic application. 9
Need 3.3 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Can be used in different countries. 1
Need 4.1 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will use autothermostate valves to regulate flow. 3
Need 4.2 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will be low maintenance. 3
Need 4.3 Solar Pasteurizer - Water Disinfection System Will be oberable by a person with little education. 9

Background Information Provided by the Customer

Useful Web Resources
Useful Documentation

DPM Spring 05 Sustainability Projects Report

Initial Concepts to Consider

Customer Deliverables

This project is a part of the EPA's P3 competition (See website above). Therefore, the customer has specific deliverables that must be met to fulfill the contract for the grant awarded to this project. A final report is due to the EPA by April 11th, 2007. (Suggested to have final report prepared a week in advance so that Dr. Stevens may revise.) The final report has specific guidelines that it must follow. These guidlines are listed on the website link provided above. Also, the team is expected to participate in the exhibition in Washington, DC in May 2007. Expectations for this expo can be viewed on the EPA website above.

Customer and Sponsor Involvement

The team will be expected to carry out the vast majority of their interactions with the Team Guide (Dr. Walter), and the teaching assistant (Jeff Webb). Dr. Hensel (The sponsor and customer) will be available for a series of meetings during the course of the project. Dr. Hensel will meet with a group of teams during the beginning of SD1 to lay out common goals, objectives, and philosophies for the sequence of projects being sponsored by the Gleason Foundation gift to the ME Department. It is anticipated that Dr. Hensel will meet with the team (or multiple related teams) for 2 hour meetings approximately 4 times during senior design 1, and twice during senior design 2. Dr. Hensel will participate with team communications electronically, through the web site as well.

Regulatory Requirements

Project Budget and Special Procurement Processes

This project has recieved the EPA P3 Award Grant which provides the team with a $10,000 budget. Unfortunately about half of that money is devoted to funding the travel Washington, DC in spring 2007 for a required conference as a deliverable of the EPA contract/grant.

This leaves the student team with about $4,500 left for materials and data acquistion supplies and equipment. The consumables to be purchased will be decided by the team after interactions with contacts from Venezuela to determine the available materials and manufacturing processes to be used for the development of the solar pastuerizer.

An itemized budget for EPA Water Disinfection Project is provided by Dr. Stevens in his EPA STAR Grant Application Proposal which is available in the "Background Information Provided by the Customer" above.

Intellectual Property Considerations

All work to be completed by students in this track is expected to be released to the public domain. Students, Faculty, Staff, and other participants in the project will be expected to release rights to their designs, documents, drawings, etc., to the public domain, so that others may freely build upon the results and findings without constraint.

Students, Faculty, and Staff associated with the project are encouraged to publish findings, data, and results openly.

Engineering Specifications

List of Metrics

The table below presents the metrics that will be used by the team to design against.

List of Metrics
Metric No. Need Nos. Metric Importance Units
1
2
3
4
5
6

The engineering specifications that you created in the preceding list should be directly related to the customer needs as outlined in the previous homework.

Needs - Metrics Matrix
Needs and Metrics Metric 1 Metric 2 Metric 3 Metric 4 Metric 5, etc.
Need 1 x x
Need 2 x
Need 3 x x
Need 4, etc. x x x

Competitive Benchmarking Information

Relatively few Sr. design projects start from a clean sheet of paper. In most cases, there are some baseline solutions or products that could meet the vast majority of the customer's needs.

Write one or two paragraphs about each benchmark solution from the market place. Include a picture of the product, preferably illustrating the product in use or operation.

Benchmark 1
Describe the first benchmark solution here.
Benchmark 2
Describe the second benchmark solution here.
Benchmark 3
Describe the third benchmark solution here.

Use this table below to compare how pre-existing solutions should compare against the design team's efforts. See the example Table 5-6 on Page 80 of the text by Ulrich and Eppinger.

Competitive Benchmarking Matrix
Metric No. Need Nos. Metric Importance Units Benchmark 1 Value Benchmark 2 Value Benchmark 3 Value
1 Need 1,3
2 Need 2,6
3 Need 1,3
4 Need 1,3
5 Need 4
6 Need 5

Ideal and Marginally Acceptable Target Values

Given the customer needs, awareness of the marketplace, and resource limitations of the current project, assign preliminary engineering specifications on each of the metrics. In addition to setting the nominal or target value or each specification, provide guidance to the team on the ideal value or direction that the team should strive for, once the nominal target values have been realized.

List of Metrics
Metric No. Need Nos. Metric Importance Units Marginal value Ideal Value
1 Need 1,2
2 Need 2,4
3 Need 5
4 Need 6
5 Need 5,1
6 Need 6,2

Safety Constraints

Detailed Course Deliverables

Note that this level describes an absolute level of expectation for the design itself, and for the hardware. However, the student team must also meet all requirements related to analysis, documentation, presentations, web sites, and posters, etc. that are implicit to all projects.

See Senior Design I Course Deliverables for detail.

The following tasks should be completed by the end of SD1:
The following tasks should be completed by the end of SD2:

Preliminary Work Breakdown

Person Week 0->1 Tasks

(8 Dec 06)

Week 1->2 Tasks

(15 Dec 06)

Week 2->3 Tasks

(22 Dec 06)

ME Student 1
ME Student 2
ME Student 3
ME Student 4
ISE Student 1
ISE Student 2

Grading and Assessment Scheme

Grading of students in this project will be fully consistent with grading policies established for the SD1 and SD2 courses. The following level describes an absolute level of expectation for the design itself, and for the hardware. However, the student team must also meet all requirements related to analysis, documentation, presentations, web sites, and posters, etc. that are implicit to all projects.

Level D:
The student team will design and build a prototype pasteurizer and do preliminary testing on performance. The team shall also complete a final report to be submitted to to the EPA by April 11th, 2007 as described at (http://es.epa.gov/ncer/p3/teams/index.html). The team will also participate in the EPA P3 Expo in May 2007.
Level C:
The student team will deliver all elements of Level D PLUS: The student team will do extensive testing of the prototype and verify pasteurization is accomplished either through thermal testing or biological testing or both.
Level B:
The student team will deliver all elements of Level D and C PLUS: The prototype will satisfy the customer needs greater than 5 listed above and some if not all low level needs.
Level A:
The student team will deliver all elements of Level D, C, and B PLUS: The prototype shall be a substantial improvement over existing solar pastuerizers. The prototype's durability and eas of operation should be demonstrated. Full testing under a range of environmental conditions should be done and manufacturing plans should be drafted.

Required Resources

Faculty

Item Source Description Available
Dr. Rob Stevens ME Faculty Guide/Coordinator/Mentor Yes
Dr. Margaret Bailey ME Co-Advisor Yes
Dr. Andres Carrano ISE Co-Advisor (Also the lead advisor of U.V. Water Disinfection Project) Yes
Dr. Brian Thorn ISE Co-Advisor Yes

Other Resources

Item Source Description Available
Partners in Venezuela See Proposal Abstract Regional Information on Manufacturing and Materials Constraints Yes

Environment

Item Source Description Available
IE Lab IE 09-1150 Work Space/Storage (Although would have to clean up after every use; therefore, not ideal) Yes, is needed
Thermofluids Lab Room Number?? Work Space Dr. Stevens is working on it
Outdoor Space Porch on southside of Microelectronics building Testing Purposes Dr. Stevens and Dr. Hensel are working on it
ME Shop ME 09-2360 Parts Fabrication Yes

Equipment

Item Source Description Available
Dr. Stevens has a computer See Dr. Stevens Use for Data Acquisition Yes

Materials

-The team must complete some material analysis to become familiar with the types of materials that will be readily available for use in the developing world, where their end product will be built and put to use.