Cleaning Up Murky Water Essay

Purpose

The purpose of this experiment is to determine whether one of two methods of cleaning murky water is efficient or better than the other. The two methods used are capillary action method and filtration method. Capillary action uses a clean cloth to drip water into a dish and filtration uses a filter to catch debris from water poured through.

Methods and Materials

Materials needed for this experiment include a jar filled with murky water consisting of water and soil (a teaspoon of dirt in a quart of water). Two empty dishes of at least 3 inches in height are needed to test the first method. A clean cloth (such as a cloth dish towel) is also required. A jar, sand, and a filtration system with a filter (such as a coffee filter) are needed to test the second method.

The method of using capillary action requires the receiving container to be placed below the first container that will hold the murky water from the jar. The murky water container may be placed on a stack of books above the receiving container. The cloth should extend between the murky water container and the receiving container. A half inch of clean water should be placed in the receiving container. The cloth should touch both the murky water and the clean water so that it serves essentially as a wet “bridge” between the two containers. The cloth should be securely in place so that it soaks water from the top container and transfers it to the container below.

The method of using filtration method is to use a filtration device such as a coffee filter or a folded paper towel with sand in it as a screen. The murky water is poured through the filtration device and collected in the empty jar below.
The method for making the dirty water was to take a quart of clean water and mix a teaspoon of soil into the water. This became the jar of murky water and served as the source of murky water for the testing of both methods. This ensured that the murky water was of the same “strength” for both tests in the experiment. Soil may obtained from the ground.

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that both tests will produce the same result—i.e., that the capillary action method is just as effective as the filtration method for removing debris from water. I think this will be the case because both tests are essentially using the same means of filtering the water just in a different manner.

Results

A: Capillary Action Method
The capillary action method took longer for the filtration method to complete. It was a slow process. The water was higher in the bottom pan than it was in the top, indicating that water had transferred from the top container into the bottom container using the cloth as the “bridge” as predicted.

When the test began, the water was higher in the top container than it was in the bottom container. After letting the water sit overnight, the water was higher in the bottom container. The water in the bottom container was clean and free of debris. The debris had mainly settled in the bottom of the top container.
After researching capillary action on the Internet, I learned that water moves through surface tension via a porous medium (“Emergency Water Filtration—The Capillary Siphon,” 2009).

B: Filtration Method
The filtration system was taken from the household coffee maker. A coffee filter was used to strain the murky water from the original murky water jar made for the two tests. A clean jar from the cabinet was used to house the filtration system.
The process was quick and took seconds to complete. The murky water was poured through the filter into….....