Abstract
Household pitcher-style water filtration systems are widely used as an affordable and accessible means of improving drinking water quality. These cartridges rely on granular activated carbon (GAC) and ion-exchange resin beads for the filtration media. Although this approach is suitable for municipal tap water, the media clogs and exhausts prematurely. This project proposes an alternative design for the internal media of a household filter that uses a chitosan-based aerogel embedded with waste biomass-derived activated carbon and sodium bentonite. This approach replaced both the GAC and ion-exchange resin with a single homogeneous material. One of the most prevalent sources of heavy metals is industrial runoff from mining and refining operations. Another contaminant of significant concern is gasoline and other similar hydrocarbon fuels/lubricants. This material has been engineered to remove two key contaminants: copper(II) and gasoline. Mixing commercial copper(II) into water simulated a mining-industry effluent, and Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) was used to determine the copper concentration in the solution before and after filtration. The surface area was characterized using the Brunauer-Emmet-Teller method (BET), which determines the material's ability to absorb contaminants. Subsequently, the material's full capabilities were tested on an effluent sample from Kelowna Plating, a copper plating facility in West Kelowna.