The main goal of our team is to raise awareness on the importance of wastewater treatment in Honduras and ensure that AguaClara drinking water treatments are properly removing diarrheal pathogens. Richardson Lab at Cornell University has been working on this topic in depth using membrane filter and openArray DNA analysis technology. Under Professor Richardson's supervision, we are going to develop a viable method to sample and preserve pathogens in the field so that the sample pathogens can be shipped to the lab to be analyzed.
Fall 2017
The Water Quality Monitoring for Diarrheal Pathogens team was a new team this semester. The goal was to demonstrate that AguaClara plants remove pathogens from drinking water, not just suspended particles and E. coli. For Fall 2017, that meant finding the most efficient way to test the raw source water and treated water of AguaClara plants in Honduras for bacterial and viral diarrheal pathogens. The process was tested by varying turbidity, pump speed, pore size of flat filter membrane, and location of filters in series and in parallel. The Richardson Lab has been working on this topic for some time already, and the WQMDP team expanded on their work this semester. Collaborating with the Richardson lab, the team trained an AguaClara member with the developed protocols on sample filtration and sent the member to the AguaClara January trip to Honduras for the sampling campaign.
Documents
| Challenges | Tasks | Literature Search | Symposium | Final Presentation | Final Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall '17 | WQMDP Symposium -2017 Fall | WQMDP Final Report-2017 Fall |