Modified Roughing Filter

V G Surendhar and R Thiruvenkadam, students of the Civil Engineering department, put their heads together to build the “Modified Roughing Filter”. Their concern for the depleting water resource was their motivation to build this low cost filter hoping that they could in some way help reduce water pollution in the country. All the materials needed to build this filter are cheap and easily available.

It is true that the roughing filter is already in existence but the modified roughing filter incorporated newer techniques to yield water that is safe for reuse. Adsorption, mechanical trapping and screening techniques are used to ensure this. Contaminated water is passed through five tanks. The first tank contains large gravel, the second medium sized gravel, the third has bricks, the fourth thank contains chips and the last is filled with activated charcoal. Each of these removes one of the major contaminants of water.

Testing of the purified water showed that water was indeed much cleaner with all contaminants well below the permissible limit.

Clearly the roughing filter shows creativity, talent and the desire to work for the greater good among these young future engineers.