5/1/2018 - Week 5


Testing Prototype: (with Water)
Inside a two liters water bottle: Layers of Cotton Pads + a thick layer of Activated Charcoal Powder


We filtered water through this prototype several time, but the water still came out to be black which most of the charcoal filtered with the water. This result is different from last week's testing (the water came out completely clear after running a few rounds of water through this same prototype). 



Revised Prototype: 
We decided to use the same prototype, but this same using more cotton pads and less charcoal powders
We continued to filtered water through this prototype a couple of times and this time it seems to be working. The filtered water is coming out quite clear, but some of the charcoal is still coming through the cotton pads and into the filtered water. However, as we ran water through the filtration system over and over again the water eventually came out completely clear.

Organic Solution testing: (Red Dye)
Round 1:
Using the prototype, we ran a test of the organic solution to make sure that the water would be filtered completely clear before moving on to the metal solution testing.
We tried to filter 50 mL of the red dye solution through this filtration prototype and the water successfully came out completely clear.
Looking at the filtered red dye solution on a napkin  
The filtered red dye solution. It shows that the filtration prototypel filtered 35 mL of the solution in 4 minutes
However, we did recognize that the water is being filtered too slowly. 

Round 2: 
We recreated the same prototype, but this time we put less of the charcoal powder than what was used in round 1. This same result appears, the red dye solution is completely filtered where the water came out clear. However, this time the water is being filtered at a quicker pace. It filtered 45-50 mL of the solution in 4 minutes. 

Metal Solution Testing (Blue Dye)
Result: Initially, the solution is being filtered out clear, but in the end, the solution came out murky blue meaning the metal solution in the water has not been filtered.

Summary
This prototype (Layers of Cotton Pads and a thin layer of charcoal powder) has successfully filtered out the organic solution and just water. We figure out that a thick layer of charcoal would actually slow down the filtration, so we have decided yo use just a thin layer of charcoal powder and it seems to produce the same results. However, the prototype did not pass the metal solution testing where some of the solution came out in the filtered water, thus, a revised prototype is needed for next week. Thus, for next week, we decided to add a layer of coffee filter paper and a layer of T-shirt to this prototype to see if it will filter the blue dye. 




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