Membrane-less water filter

You all may know that getting clean water is a big problem in many place around the world and that the ability of reprap to print water filters would be quite beneficial.

So xerox recently came up for an interesting design of water filter that doesn't require micro-porous membranes, but instead relies on centrifugal forces to filter out particles. In other words it can probably be printed out by reprap.

[www.parc.com]

wow, I like that! I'm way into sustainable designs that a person can do in their own community. That looks like a very hand system with great reprapable potential though I'm sure we would need to deal with a lot of smoothness issues if that were to work.

Demented

Or instead of improving smoothness, print it as 2 interlocking pieces with a printed silicone gasket.

This is a straightforward idea, the real complications in the design comes from requiring multiple pumps, otherwise there's no water pressure in the output.

It also is a good example of something difficult to make with subtractive machining.

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[olytim.blogspot.com]

Wow that's clever.

I have a long standing flirtation with Aquaponics and this could be really useful to seperate solids from pond water.

Just cant wait to gat a Darwin completed and have a mess.

Well spotted.

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

Wonder if a piece of heated and coiled plastic pipe would do the trick. Be sure to use a bending spring to stop the pipe from kinking though.

The cleverest bit is the split outlet as this seems to decide how much of the flow goes which way.

Maybe design and printout a clever outlet but make the actual spiral out of pipe.

This should help with any smoothness issues.

I don't think you actually need multiple pumps, just one to supply the top of a stack. Gravity does the rest. If you manage to feed the next spiral with the outlet to inlet alignment correctly you will actually increase the throughput velocity. You would need to match or balance off the clean water outlet drop to match though or you just suck more clean water through with your silty water.

This is because it draws down on the spiral above in the stack. This is something that Hydro electric designers rely on in designing their outlet's from the Hydro Turbines. The total drop for hydro purposes is the drop from the water level above the inlet to the turbine plus the drop in the outlet pipe from the turbine to the outlet. Not solely from inlet mouth to the turbine.

I think I might mess with this next time I need to siphon off some home brewed wine etc.

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

Tell Your Water filter company you want Auto Flush Technology. "They are not taking every measure to protect your health!
Proctor and Gamble = lafley.ag@pg.com or go to Clorox or any filter makers and send them a customer service email.
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Also since the Process of Flushing can easily be adapted for use in faucet mounted water filters to flush out water filters it could save people the effort of doing it manually, which means they could forget and waste water when they have to throw out a glass of water with black filter particles in it as they forgot to flush it, So let us take that small worry out and ask your water filter companies to add our patent pending process, "Tell them we want water filters with Auto Flush Technology:}" I know I would appreciate that and your support in getting the word out! A simple task of programming a control board to operate inlet and outlet valves to create a flushing process is a small endeavour for them to take on to look out for your health. The flushing process can begin in any manner of ways as it is a programmable controller and the flushing can be activated by setting a timed flushing alert or just by flipping on the filter switch or by just activating your water faucet.

The water Filter makers claim that the black particulates that can end up in your drinking glass are 100% harmless, but should you really believe that? If the filters capture harmful bacteria and contaminates.......What does that mean? I don't want to drink residue from a dirty filter...."Please don't forget to manually Flush you water filter." Send them patent pending #11/875,356 to read it describes the process of flushing....

I must resurrect this ancient thread because this is extremely interesting.

This is really interesting. I wonder if a coiled pvc tube, feed by a bucket held up high, and a printed separator plug in the end would work? I would imagine getting the correct flow rate through the pipe is the key thing. I wonder if it would work as a desalination device. I suppose it can't filter out things that are dissolved in the water, eg sugar. Could it separate my mug of tea (happens to be in front of me) back into it's constituent parts?!

Also, would taking the centre of the flow be the sensible thing to do? That way it would filter out not only sediment that is heavier than water, but material that is lighter and floats on water, eg paraffin.

It has to be said that rivers have been doing this for... ever. Sediment always get deposited on the inside of a bend in a river, in the slower current.

SnailRacer Wrote:
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> > This is a straightforward idea, the real
> complications in the design comes from requiring
> multiple pumps, otherwise there's no water
> pressure in the output.
>
> It also is a good example of something difficult
> to make with subtractive machining.

I didn't notice that someone already designed the filter and posted it here. I think im gonna try it