Jason Koutoudis's Contribution Page

Contribution to Arsenic team during Spring of 2014

My first task  this semester was to design and set up the main experimental apparatus for the Arsenic experiment, a sand column filter. Once we decided about the design parameters with the team we obtained a half-inch PVC pipe which I turned into an upflow sand filter with two openings and an intermediate tube coupling that allowed access to the sand in case the shear of the walls prevented the sand from settling during backwash. Assembling the filter, I learned a lot along the way about tubing, preventing leaks and keeping air out and these lessons required a decent amount of failure.

Furthermore, our experimental procedure suggested pretreating the sand with coagulant, therefore we first had to understand the behavior of coagulant under different conditions and evaluate how well it stuck on the sand. For this reason we assembled a manometer to see head loss as it was building. After running a few experiments with coagulant and analyzing the results, I suggested the final experimental procedure for the Arsenic experiment which was performed towards the end of the semester.