Mirrored River

We propose to build a water treatment facility beside the river that serves as a bio-filtration system. The material source for the filter would be easy to fetch. The Sporosarcina pasteurii bacterium can be easily found in soil that has a pH higher than pH7. Urea is a common fertilizer for agriculture and calcium can be extracted from eggshells and seashells. What’s more, all the reactants will be mixed with sand and leftover leather and then placed in plates. Filter plates will be placed in a big tank, allowing water to be held for about a day at 30 degrees. The reaction can be detected finished when the pH of the water drops to 7.

 

 

Then the water will be led to the second treatment, where hydroponic plants will take away the ammonia in the water. In the end, the water is cleaned and is ready to be sent back to the river system. The filter captures all the calcium carbonate precipitation along with heavy metal elements, which gives us more control over these pollutants and we can take actions to prevent them from circulating into the local water system. Such a system can also be applied in many different places since the bacterium can treat all kinds of metal pollutants. Depending on the composition of the specific pollutants, the system can combine with additional water treatment methods.

   

 

According to calculation, the ideal proportion for reactant is Urea 30g/l , Ca2+ 0.25mol/l, heavy metal <2g/l, Sporosarcina pasteurii 11g/l (2.32mg CaCO3/cell mass (mg) ), NH3 17g/l, CaCO3 25g/l. 

Ideally, 100 tons of contaminated water will produce 8 cubic meters of precipitation.