Kathmandu Water Purification

Manish J. Thapa, Pierre Winter

ETH Zürich, Switzerland

1. Goal 4. Setup and installation of the filters in Kathmandu

The goal of our project is to test the protein-based water filters recently commercialized by an
ETH Zürich spin-off, BluAct. We concentrate on a small number of houses in Kathmandu,
from where the drinking water samples are collected. The filters are composed of amyloid
fibrils and carbon [1]. They demonstrate over 99.5% efficiency in removing impurities such as
bacteria, heavy metal ions and arsenic from water. A team of researchers lead by Dr. Sreenath
Bolisetty recently successfully tested this technology on drinking water samples collected in
Peru and Italy. We would like to conduct a similar experiment at the level of four households
in the capital city of Nepal, Kathmandu.
The filters are directly connected into the taps in the kitchens in our experimental houses in
Kathmandu. The picture on the bottom-right demonstrate its portable nature. This
technology is particularly appealing for poor families in Nepal because of its cheap availability
and re-usability. This technology is scalable, and could be used to filter large amount of water
at the communal scale.

2. The problem of drinking water in Nepal

Nepal maintains its reputation in the world for its abundant water resources. Himalayan snow
covers and river basins form a majority of the drinking water sources for the Nepalese.
However, the drinking water that reaches the households in Nepal are significantly
contaminated and dirty. Hence, a large percentage of people in Nepal suffer from water-borne
diseases like cholera and typhoid year-round. The chemical and biological compounds most
responsible for contaminating the drinking water in Nepal are bacteria, arsenic and heavy
metal ions.

Glaciers in the Himalayas melt to feed the rivers. Communal drinking water supply in a neighbor-
Source: ErWin / rught Bzr, Pashchimanchal, hood in Kathmandu. Source: www.123rf.com
Nepal

5. Preliminary results

The areas in green and red color on the map indicate the levels of contaminants like arsenic and bacteria in
the drinking water sources. Source: Dr. Sreenath Bolisetty The table shows arsenic concentration before and after in the drinking water samples collected from four dif-
ferent houses in Kathmandu. The reduction rate is drastic, demonstrating the high effectiveness of this poly-
mer filter.

3. High-tech protein-based filters offer a solution

I Hybrid membranes made out of milk protein granules and carbon efficiently filter heavy metal 6. Conclusion and outlook
ions, bacteria or radioactive impurities from water.
I The high binding efficiency of amyloid protein fibrils to the contaminant such as heavy metal The preliminary results from our small-scale study in Kathmandu show that with this filters we
ions serve as a filtering tool, as has been studied using molecular docking simulations [2]. were able to achieve at least 97 % reduction rates in arsenic contaminant in the drinking
water samples collected from four houses. The fact that these filters are highly efficient while
at the same time being cheap serves as an extremely viable option for people in Nepal to
adopt for water purification on a day-to-day basis. Our study so far has been limited to the
capital city of Nepal. In the future, we plan to do similar experiment in the eastern part of
Nepal where people face major arsenic contaminants in their drinking water. Our long term
goal would be to use this innovative technology to provide clean drinking water on a
community level and improve the quality of life for entire Nepalese villages. We would like to
thank Dr. Sreenath Bolisetty for showing us the filters in the research lab at ETH Zürich, and
sharing with us information regarding the technology. We would also like to thank Siddhartha
Schematic of heavy metal ions being filtered by The membrane selectively absorbs impurities of Shakya, who performs experiments with the samples collected in Kathmandu.
the amyloid-carbon membrane [1]. different sizes from the water [1].

References

[1] S. Bolisetty and R. Mezzenga. Nature nanotechnology 11, 365 (2016). [2] M Sahihi, Y Ghayeb and A Khalegh Bordbar. Chemical and biochemical engineering quarterly 27, 417 (2013).

manish.thapa@phys.chem.ethz.ch , pierre.winter@phys.chem.ethz.ch