5/29/2018 - Week 9

According to last week's testing, the existing prototype still fail to filter out the blue dye solution. Thus, we modified our prototype and decided to use some new materials - gravel - and we decided to mix the sand and charcoal powder and the gravel to see if it will be more effective.

New Prototype:
Inside a 2 liter bottle: 2 inches of cotton pads, 3 inches of charcoal powder/sand/gravel mix, 1/4 inch of sand, 1.5 inches of gravel
We ran all three solutions into this filtration prototype, but we realized that some of the layers are too thick which the filtered water is coming out at a slow pace. And that we had too much gravel, especially in between the charcoal and sand layer. However, we did recognize that the filtered water came out clear which it seems that this prototype is working. 
Thus, we recreate this prototype, but this time we remove the gravel from the charcoal/sand layer and reduce some of the gravel on the top layer. 
This time, the water came out at a quicker pace, i.e where it filtered 5 mL in 3 minutes and 25 mL in 5 minutes, however, it is still filtering too slow. 

So we continue to reduce some of the gravel from the charcoal/sand/gravel layer and reduce some of the charcoal to minimize their thickness. 
Result: We ran 80 mL of each solutions through this prototype and the filtered water came out clear. Thus, we had successfully filtered the solutions water into clear water. Also, this time, the water is coming out quicker where it filtered 50 mL of solutions in 6 minutes. 

Summary
Today, we tested a new prototype and it had successfully filtered out all three solutions (red dye, blue dye, and the micron-beads). Despite that we had some difficulty with the rate of water flow, we eventually filtered 50 mL of solutions in 6 minutes. 

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