A 22-year-old fourth-year Chemical Engineering student has developed a clean water drinking system for rural South African households.
The slow sand filter method has been used for centuries to treat water. It’s so effective that the World Health Organization has given it its stamp of approval: “Under suitable circumstances, slow sand filtration may be not only the cheapest and simplest but also the most efficient method of water treatment.”
Until now this method has mostly been used on a large scale, but fourth-year chemical engineering student in the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering at Wits, Busisiwe Mashiane is researching and developing a slow sand filter to meet the needs of South Africans at home.
An enthusiastic, energetic, and driven fourth-year Chemical Engineering student, Busisiwe greatly values education for all.
“Many South Africans living in disadvantaged communities across the country not only have difficulties accessing water but also face many health risks due to the lack of access to clean drinking water,” explains Mashiane.
“Our aim is to develop a low-cost but highly efficient water treatment system that can treat river water effectively and make it consumable. We want to ensure that, because people in these communities cannot afford elaborate water treatment methods, our system can assist in their basic human right of having access to clean potable water.”
She adds that the system is largely what is called a continuous system where there is flow from one container to the next until you get the final product.
“You pour water into a feed tank, that could be a bucket of 25 litres or bigger, dependent on the needs of the family. And that’s the water that we would get from the river or rainwater and we flow it through into that and the water flows through the water.”
Watch her interview below:
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