Dear reader...
Aqueous Solutions’ Executive Director Gay Pho (far right) teaching Karen students about microbial water quality testing, Tavoy District, Karen State, 2014.
A hearty thanks from myself, Matt, and our collaborators working behind the scenes to produce this project. We hope you’ve enjoyed the installments so far.
Originally I had planned to offer a summary of the peer-reviewed literature on biochar sorption of chemical pollutants used in the design and operation of water treatment systems as the final section of Chapter 3. However, since this is such a rich topic, I/we have decided to break it out and develop it into its own Chapter (Chapter 4).
What’s more, over the coming weeks and months we have several more journal papers making their way through the publication pipeline that detail leading-edge research advances on biochar adsorption of sentinel PFAS and several of their relative compounds, innovations in fluoride control using bone char, mass transfer modeling and scaling approaches for predicting treatment system performance, as well as proxy methods for trace organic chemical removal that can be applied for R&D in field-lab circumstance and for treatment system monitoring in low-resource settings, along with other hot topics.
So rather than the sequential approach that we’ve taken so far in putting out sections of Chapters 1 through 3, we’ll return to Chapter 4 periodically over the coming weeks and months to append redux segments of the latest research topics. It will be a work-in-progress.
Meanwhile, we will forge ahead with installments of Part II of the book, for those who are ready to go out and make biochar adsorbent and start setting up water treatment systems.
Noting these changes, I’ve posted the revised outline of the book below.
Please feel free to share this project with anyone who might be interested. As a reminder, if the subscription fee presents a hardship email me and we can work something out.
Thanks for your interest and support!
Part I - Background and Technical Primer
Chapters 1 through 4 provide the relevant background on the importance of chemicals in overall water quality and water-sanitation-hygiene (WASH) development, a method for arriving a specific set of indicator sentinel chemicals used for assessing biochar adsorbents and designing treatment systems, and a primer on adsorption: how adsorbents are generated, how they work to remove pollutants, and practical plain-language summary of the peer-reviewed research that forms the basis of biochar water treatment.
Chapter 1 - The importance of chemical toxicants in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) provision
Chapter 2 - ‘Priority pollutants’ and chemicals of emerging concern
Chapter 3 - Adsorption: A cost-effective treatment process for chemical contaminants
Chapter 4 - Summary of research on biochar adsorption of chemical pollutants
Part II - Putting Biochar Water Treatment Into Practice
With the fundamentals under our belt, we get to the good stuff. This section of the book provides practical instruction on making biochar adsorbent using low-tech methods, engineering the design and operation of biochar contactors, integrating biochar adsorption with other treatment processes for addressing overall water quality, and monitoring biochar water treatment systems in the field to provide quality assurance.
Chapter 5 - Making biochar adsorbent
This chapter covers selection and preparation of biochar feedstock, building and operating a biochar pyrolyzer from start-up to shut-down, a variety of process adaptations and add-ons, and methods for processing raw biochar for use in water treatment.
Chapter 6 - Design and operation of biochar contactors
This chapter details the factors affecting the design and operation of biochar water treatment systems including assessment of household and community water needs, source water options, hardware availability, and chemical contaminants of concern. It provides a kit of spreadsheet-based and “computerless” tools for the design of treatment systems, and instructions for disposal or regeneration of spent biochar adsorbent.
Chapter 7 - Integrating biochar adsorption with other treatment processes
This chapter describes how to link biochar contactors with other pre- and/or post- treatment unit processes to address a variety of water quality issues including biological pathogens and taste/odor concerns.
Chapter 8 - Monitoring biochar water treatment systems in the field
This chapter provides instruction on how important water quality parameters are measured in the lab and how they can be measured in the field - and if they can’t readily be measured in the field, how proxy measurements work to provide quality assurance of biochar water treatment systems.
Chapter 9 - Resources for conducting biochar water treatment workshops and installations
This chapter provides a bevy of tools and resources collected over years of experience conducting biochar water treatment workshops with communities in low-resource settings, WASH practitioners, and University students and researchers.