In order for our solution to be successful, it must meet these standards:
- It must be formed from materials available in nature in a significant amount of underdeveloped regions in Africa. The process is being created for those without access to clean water, primarily in Africa. In such impoverished regions of Africa, they do not have chemical and technological resources available like developed countries do. Therefore, our process must only involve the materials found in nature in Africa.
- It must produce a water quality that meets accepted standard for human consumption. According to the EPA criteria for water quality,
- “All waters, including those within mixing zone, shall be free from substances attributable to wastewater discharge or other pollutant sources that:
- Settle to form objectionable deposits;
- Float as debris, scum, oil, or other matter forming nuisances;
- Produce objectionable color, odor, taste, or turbidity;
- Cause injury to or are toxic to, or produce adverse physiological responses in humans, animals, or plants; or
- Produce undesirable or nuisance aquatic life”
- “All waters, including those within mixing zone, shall be free from substances attributable to wastewater discharge or other pollutant sources that:
- It must rely on simple human skills that wouldn’t require extensive training. The process must not be extremely time consuming to learn, as that would be counterproductive to our goal. The majority of the population in Africa is unskilled workers, so we would like the skills needed for our process to be comparable to household and farming skills.
- It must be of use to people without electricity and running water. In developing regions, most of the population does not have access to clean running water, which is the point of our project, therefore the project must be executable without access to clean water. Additionally, access to electricity is similarly scarce so our process must not rely on commercially produced energy.
- It must be able to clean enough to provide the daily standard amount of water needed for human consumption. Humans should drink somewhere from two to three liters a day, according to an article on water by the Mayo Clinic. Our process needs to be efficient enough to reasonably produce this much water for each person in a household each day.
- it must be able to be utilized in a timely manner. The process will be used daily, so ideally it would not take long to work.