Novel Techniques for Water Treatment

A rapid decline in the quality of drinking water sources across the world has emerged as a considerable threat to human life. Maintaining a continuous supply of clean drinking water is a challenging task in rural and marginalized communities, where conventional methods of monitoring and treatment cannot be implemented due to a lack of appropriate infrastructure and skilled personnel. Hence, the main focus of the present thesis is to develop better water quality monitoring and purification techniques targeted towards portable point-of-use systems. The approach towards better water quality monitoring involves the development of a rapid and portable concentrating device which can be used in conjunction with microfluidics based biosensor platforms to detect pathogens in contaminated water. The solution to the problem of water treatment involves the assessment of a naturally available antimicrobial agent, the Moringa oleifera seed extract, followed by its integration into a novel and truly sustainable device capable of removing bacterial loads from contaminated water.