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The plant prototype is designed at small scale.

The size may vary depending on the amount of water to be purified.

The water treatment works using electromagnets and chemicals.

The proposal is connected to an electrical device.

In the future they hope connect it through Bluetooth.

The work group is comprised of 20 students.

This water treatment project is also supported by using chemicals such as flocculants which enable grouping ferruginous compounds which are iron, mercury, copper and arsenic rich bacterial compounds dragged by tainted water. 

Furthermore the following filtration stage requires injecting certain amounts of chlorine to help disinfect the processed liquid. 

“In another stage we have sand and activated charcoal in one of four tanks to carry out the purification process where we eliminate the chlorine and other contaminants still remaining in the water after passing through the preceding stages,” said Daniela Ramírez Murillo, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNal) in Manizales Electronics Engineering student and project leader. 

The automatized electromagnetic water treatment plant which now is undergoing several experimental tests to improve efficiency has the size of a small fish tank and is connected to a dual digital power source. 

According to the work group the plant would be a solution for municipalities which do not have a water treatment plants and also has other benefits in regards to assembly, water purifying time, maintenance and operative personnel. 

“Most water plants are large and require a large and complex infrastructure. With this it is the opposite, despite its size, it depends on the amount of water to treat and it will occupy less space. Additionally the operation model is different, as our works with electromagnets,” said Ramírez. 

International award 

The prototype which is constantly being modified by the UNal Laboratory of Electronics began with the Robotics Group of Escuela Nacional Auxiliares de Enfermería (Colombian School of Nursing Aids) of Manizales. 

“With this project, Daniela and her partners were awarded a special mention at the Korea Science and Technology Fair held in August of 2015. Later at UNal she continued improving the project,” said Julio César García, Director of the Applied Electromagnetic Propagation Group (PROPELA, for its Spanish acronym.) 

According to Ramírez, the event in Korea allowed them to showcase their proposal which as he claims, is viable and on the mid-term they can massify the design it to any scale. The project also attracted other people such as engineer Sebastián Giraldo, who helped them during the first phase of the project. 

The prototype will also been tested to allow operations through Bluetooth.