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U of A students promote clay pots for clean water

BY JULIA KENT | FEB 09 2009

A group of medical students at the University of Alberta is promoting a simple solution to improving access to clean water in Africa: a ceramic filter in the form of a clay pot. Water is poured into the pot and when it seeps out the other side it is free 
of harmful pathogens. The key to the filters is how they’re made: the clay is mixed with organic matter which burns off in the 
kiln when the pot is fired, making it 
water-permeable.

Third-year medical student Abdullah Saleh began experimenting with the filters in 2007 and shared his findings with two classmates, Abraam Isaac and Tyler van Mulligan. The Kenya Ceramic Project now has a team of nine medical students working in Kenya and in Canada. Another project, called Potters for Peace, has been using similar technology in Central and South America since the early 1980s.

University of Alberta biology professor Mike Belosevic, who specializes in water-borne infectious diseases, helped the students test the filters in his lab. The clay filters are a practical idea, he says, since pottery-making is already a big business in East Africa.

The students plan to return to Kenya this summer to build kilns and to make the ceramic filters. Their goal is to distribute the filters to households with young children, because they’re the most susceptible to water-borne diseases.

Dr. Belosevic says the students are most concerned with educating locals about how to properly use and clean the filters. If used properly, the efficacy of the filters does not deteriorate over time, he says.

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  1. CAN AID AFRICA / April 14, 2010 at 12:36

    I have been looking for some cheap means of helping vulnerable communities in Tanzania purify their drinking water.

    This method of clay pots looks interesting.

    Kindly contact me, so I can learn more from you.

    Thank you.

    Dr Shiraz Datoo, Toronto.

  2. Léo Charbonneau / April 26, 2010 at 09:42

    Dr. Datoo,

    The contact information for the two groups mentioned in the article — Kenya Ceramic Project and Potters for Peace — can be found by simply clicking on their links, in red.

    Léo Charbonneau, Deputy Editor, University Affairs

  3. leonard Wan / July 1, 2011 at 11:20

    Please provide the detail process for the ceramic filter. How does one integrate the filter into an existing large container? Please send picture or drawing if it is possible. Could it remove metal and/or biological material? What is the relation between the size of the filter and the amount of water to be filtered? I will setup a purification system for a developing area, kindly contact me so I can learn more from you. Thank you.

    Dr. Leonard Wan, Boston

  4. Ndungo Samuel / May 20, 2013 at 07:01

    Thanks for the innovation to reduce water borne diseases. This is idea for rural resource poor communities where access to safe water is very limited and will have great impact in areas like Kasese, western Uganda where clay pots are still much relied on for cooling drinking water.

    Should you be looking for more communities to test this, the maybe consider rural Ugandan communities like Kasese.

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