Find X: Solutions to Problems of Drinking Water

Plants do important things like providing food, timber and preventing soil erosion, but can we use them as water filters in our homes? 

Many communities around the world lack access to clean drinking water. Water contamination causes diarrhoea, which is one of the leading causes of death in children under the age of 5.

Science Gallery Bengaluru as a part of their exhibition-season organized a workshop on water filtration called ‘X-filtration’ at the Bangalore International Centre. This workshop was facilitated by Krithika Ramchander, a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Krithika has come up with an innovative low-cost solution to purify contaminated water using plant tissues called xylem.  Xylem tissues have extremely small pores. Observing this, an innovative idea was born. What would happen if we could use these tissues to filter water? She found that the xylem tissue layer from the trunk of gymnosperms like pine, cedar and gingko worked best. 

When water is passed through a close column containing xylem tissue, it can get rid of a lot of bacteria. Even just a one-inch piece of wood is enough for this to work!

At the workshop, 20 participants got a chance to understand its design and create water filters as well. They tested the filters on colored water and found it to be successful

One of the participants, Mr Arvind said, “ This addresses real-world problems”. The workshop gave the participants a hands-on experience in science and encouraged their curiosity to learn more. 

Krithika plans to bring down the cost of making these water filters so that is can be used in emergencies as well as for everyday use by people and communities that are most susceptible to diseases due to water contamination. 

By Yamini Undurthi, Mediator