Two students of the Singapore Polytechnic (SP) have developed a low-cost water filtration cartridge to help with the shortage of clean water in Vietnam’s rural areas, according to Singapore’s online Today newspaper.

Created by students Sandy Loh and Koh Yong Xiang under the guidance of Dr. Adrian Yeo, Research Fellow at the Environment and Water Research Institute of the Nanyang Technological University, the Gravity Filter costs only 11 SGD (about 190,000 VND) and can last up to two years.

Yeo said that they have done some work in Vietnam and want to have “a sustainable method of providing clean water to people who live quite far apart .”

The Gravity Filter consists of hollow-fibre membranes of polysulfone that have a pore size of 0.1 microns, which blocks almost all bacteria and micro-organisms. It needs no energy input and the flow rate of the discharged clean water is 200-600 millilitres per minute.

According to the research group, the filter is cheap as it uses available technology.

Fifty filters will be tested in a pilot scheme in Vietnam next month.-VNA