Abstract

Drinking healthy water which contain a percentage of impurities is becoming important as population growth, and because of the deterioration ofthe environment resulting from industrial development and its consequences,as well as the water of the rivers of the dry and semi-dry regions, Iraq is part of it, which characterized by high pollution and turbidity. In order to protecthuman health, filters have been made to remove Suspension, taste, odor and bacterial pollution.In this work, kaolin was used as a local raw material for the production offilters, obtained from Duekhla region west of Iraq, in addition carrot fibers and wood charcoal as organic materials that burn during sintering to create pores.The kaolin powder was used with weight percentage of (100, 98, 94 , 90, 86 ,80, 76) with particle size ranging from (45-63) µm for fine ( 105-150) µm for coarse, and mixed with equal weight percent for the both, wood charcoal and carrot fiber with sodium silicate as a deflocculated material. Slip casting method was used to fabricate the filtration samples. The filters were dried at 100 ° C for 24 hours and sintered at (1100 ° C) with soaking time (1 hour). A number of structural tests were performed (X-ray, SEM), physical tests (apparent porosity, water absorption, permeability, bulk density and linear shrinkage), beside the mechanical test (compressive strength). Biological test was performed for filtered water and removal of
suspended solid and of efficiency of filters were measurement. From the results according to weight percent addition and particle size, apparent porosity, water absorption and permeability were increased with loading and particle size increasing, bulk density reflected adversely proportional, which decreased with the increase weight percent of addition materials and particle size. The linear shrinking increased with increasing of additional material and decreased with increasing the particle size. While the mechanical properties are decreased with increasing loading and particle size.
Water samples taken from Tigris River were filtered by using manufactured samples, the ability of filters to remove bacteria, the ability remove suspended solid and efficiency of filters are studied. It's possible to manufacture filters to reduce the amount of bacteria from the water and the efficiency of suspended solids removal is very high for all samples manufactured by using fine and coarse kaolin with (98.85 - 99.875) % rang.