UV Bucket:::Niparajá

Sociedad de Historia Natural Niparajá, A.C.

Technology

Characteristics: UV Bucket

Disinfection flow rate: 3 Liters per minute

Durability: The UV lamp is rated at 10,000 hours. If used 15 minutes daily, lamp durability is 25 years. Actual data on lamp’s durability in the field is not available at this time, but based on the experiments at our workshop the measured duration was between 4 and 20 years.

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Efficiency: For “microbiological water purifiers”, USEPA requires 6 logarithm reduction for bacteria and 4 log reduction for viruses. The first prototype of the UV Bucket (march 2006) achieves log 7.6 reduction for bacteria(99.999994%) and between log 3.8 (first effluent) and log 4.7 (mid-effluent) reduction for viruses (99.993%). The test was performed at BIOVIR certified laboratory, Benicia, CA.

Upper reservoir

Water volume	3 liters
Flow rate down to disinfection chamber	3 liters per minute
Reflector type	silver-coated mylar
Diameter of outlet	5/16”
Time for water to flow out	1 minute
Plastic type	polyestyrene caliber 100
Process of manufacturing	vacuum-forming

Disinfection chamber

Flow rate under uv lamp	3 liters per minute
Height of the water	3.5 cm
Height of lamp above water	2 cm
Water volume	2.5 liters
Outlet diameter	½’’
Diameter of siphon	3/8’’
Time to siphon out	3 minutes
Plastic type	polyethylene caliber 100
Process of manufacturing	vacuum-forming

Bucket

Water volume	15 liters ( 20 liters also possible)
Plastic type	high-density polyethylene
Process of manufacturing	plastic injection
Water dispenser diameter	½”

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Some important points

The UV Bucket does not eliminate salts or minerals contained in the water.

UV light affects the eyes and the skin, avoid direct exposure to the lamp.

The lamp is placed above the water because of the risk of formation of calcium carbonate precipitate on the . The precipitate would then lower the intensity of the rays reaching the water and therefore lower the disinfection efficiency.