how can i make a soap solution be filtered into clean water?
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at
2:40 pm
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Tagged with: bath soap • calcium carbonate • chemistry • clean water • cud • detergent • electricity • freshman student • google • hard time • indigenous materials • script type • soap solution • text javascript • tnx • washing dishes
Filed under: Water Filter System
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The most simple method is to use an activated carbon (also called activated charcoal, ref 1) filter, such as those that are used in aquarium filtration devices or to recycle water at a car wash (ref 2). Activated carbon has an extremely high surface area relative to its volume – if you had activated carbon that weighed the same as a dime (2.25 grams), it would have about the same surface area as 1/5 of a football field, or about 3 tennis courts. Because detergent is a surfactant, it will coat the surfaces of the activated carbon as water passes through.
Distillation would be very difficult, as the boiling point of most detergents is about the same as water (98 and 100C, respectively, ref 3).
Why not just distill the solution?
I would say distillation too.
If you are requested to use indigenous materials, why do not try to use coagulation with calcium carbonates and after that a sand filter combined with activated carbon.
Distillation could be a good option, but you first have to build the distillator (the problem with it is the expense in fuel or gas or firewood at worst).
Good luck!
Bubble air through the water. Remove the soap bubbles from the surface. when the soap bubbles stop forming then the soap is gone. You will have to filter the leftover food particles from the dish water and you can use sand as a filter. Make sure you remove the soap first as the soap will coat the sand quickly and make it useless. The same goes for activated carbon filters. The carbon will remove the soap but it isn’t practical as very little soap will blind off the absorption sites very quickly. Also you have to backwash the carbon to get the soap off…creating more soapy water. If you use a sand filter you could always throw the sand away when you are done instead of back washing it. I say this because it sounds like you are working on a project where you are in a remote location like a remote island….sand would be abundant and activated carbon kind of scarce. If you had an acid source you could create activated carbon but that’s not likely.
Hope this helps