Performance Analysis of Low-Cost, Natural Media-Based Filtration System Developed with Non-Woven Geotextile Fabric

The changes in the global temperature affecting the local and universal climate at faster rate than ever. The climate change is drastically altering the ecosystem of the earth. The weather extremes will quicken as temperatures rise, making it more difficult to get freshwater, grow food and produce energy. It was studied that around 13% of artic sea ice cover declined in past several decades. In recent years we experienced and experiencing the uneven distribution of precipitation, drought conditions, cloud bursting etc. The availability of ground and surface water declined due to natural and human interference and other progressive developments for comforts. At the current rates of progress around 1.6 billion people will lack safely managed drinking water whereas 2.8 billion people will lack safely managed sanitation, and 1.9 billion people will lack basic hand hygiene facilities by the year 2030.

In this paper, the used the performance of natural media and effective alteration in the physical and biochemical properties of untreated water is addressed. In this system the filtering media with fineness modulus of 2.6 to 3.2 is placed over the Non-Woven Geotextile Fabric (NWGF) combined with natural fibers. The Geotextile fabric has mass per unit area varies between 100 gm/sq.m to 1000 gm/sq.m and thickness around 2 mm with comparatively open and porous structure, would weigh around 180 g/sq.m with cost of Rs/- 20/sq m. This paper will demonstrate the low cost designed and developed water filtration system to meet current and future need of domestic water demand of rural areas of Maharashtra.