Technical Report Draft #2

1.Background

This report has been developed as a response to a Call For Proposals (CFP) to developing solutions for engineering problems.

According to World Health Organisation(WHO, 2019), safe and readily available water has always been one of the key goals globally. The article stated that the ‘United Nation(UN) General Assembly explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation’. This shows a huge emphasis had been placed on water quality. The consumption of water in Singapore is approximated 430 million gallons of water per day (The Straits Times, 2018). In the same article, it was stated that there are four sources of water supply in Singapore: local catchment water, imported water, NEWater and desalinated water; they each can only provide up to 10%, 60%, 30%, 25% of the water needs of the entire island country respectively.

Singapore provides one of the highest quality of municipal water supply in its surrounding region. The quality of water is kept within the World Health Organization (WHO) drinking water guidelines and US Environmental Public Health (Quality of Piped Drinking Water) Regulations 2008. According to Singapore’s water agency Public Utilities Board (PUB, 2018), the quality of supplied water is assured through routine chemical and bacteriological water samples collected daily across the island. PUB also monitors the water quality at every stage of their service reservoirs and water treatment plants through online-sensors before dissemination to the public.

Despite these efforts to ensure a stable supply of clean water, PUB (2018) has stated that water from the taps can sometimes still appear brownish. They stated that this is due to unforeseen circumstances such as pipe leakages or flushing of fire hydrants, where the resulting change of direction or rate of flowing water can cause the resuspension of excess iron, manganese and other dissolved metal deposits that have accumulated over time inside the underground municipal water pipelines. Consumption of water that contain excess iron and manganese could leave a negative impact in aspects of neurological as well as physically. According to Passaic Bergen Water Softening (2017), water with excessive amounts of dissolved minerals such as iron and magnesium can have negative effects on your skin. They can damage healthy skin cells, which can lead to wrinkles. In addition, water with iron doesn’t blend well with soap. This, in turn, can lead to skin problems such as acne or eczema. At the same time, T&H Blog (2015) states that long term exposure to high concentrations of manganese in drinking water is associated with toxicity to the nervous system, producing a syndrome called Manganism.

According to Xue (2014), thousands of households in the Punggol estate were affected by discoloured tap water caused by the mineral sediments in a water pipeline stirred up during valve operations on a portable water pipe along Tampines Expressway. The water in the mains were only resolved by the next morning after PUB and Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council subsequently flushed the affected water tanks, although the problem has been solved but the residents were still advised to run their taps until the water is clean. (This leads to wastage of water and also inconvenient for the residents.) [link back to water quality]

Moreover, the routine tests that PUB conduct are only indicative of the water quality in the PUB pipes upstream. There is currently no way building owners/facility managers(FMs) can be aware of any change in quality of water once it enters their premises. Therefore, the users in household will be the first to find out the discolouration instead of the FMs. This will eventually lead to disputes between the household users and FMs, which are supposed to be prevented in the first place.

1.1 Current Situation

In Singapore, when potable water is supplied to a private building, it is done through a ferrule connection that splits off from the main underground municipal water pipe. The water is then drawn towards the building through the use of a pump, before the pipe leads into a water tank. This water tank then stores and distributes water in a network of smaller service pipes directly to a user’s taps when it is opened. The capacity of the water tank is usually built with at least 24 hours of usage volume as reserve water supply if water supply is ever disrupted.

In the event of discoloured water, once water exiting the taps have become brownish, it would indicate that the brownish water has already entered the water tank and diffused throughout the entire water supply system in the building. The entire capacity of the tank (~24 hours of reserve supply) is rendered unusable. Currently, the only process to remove the polluted water involves the halting of water supply, then flushing the contents of the entire water tank is only completed with the refilling of fresh water— with all the water ticking through the tariff meter. Apart from the wastage of water, it would be expensive for facility managers to deal with the aftermath should brownish water ever enter their water tanks.

There should be preventive/corrective measures implemented so that facility managers can effectively handle influx of such unpredictable brownish water from reaching the end-users.

1.2 Problem Statement

In the upcoming Singapore Institute of Technology @ Punggol campus, potable water supplied should always be within World Health Organisation (WHO) clean drinking standards at all times.

However, the FM of SIT have no way to know should any fluctuations in water quality occur, and thus have no way to be prepared to deal with them in time.

1.3 Purpose Statement

The purpose of this report is to propose to SIT to install a safeguard measure in the downstream potable water supply service pipeline as an early indicator to prevent potential contamination of the water tanks in SIT@ Punggol.

2. Proposed Solutions

2.1 Installing active water sensors 

The current water system in most buildings are unimpeded pipelines that directly link to the building’s water tanks. Should there be any dip in water quality, the discoloured water will directly flow into the water tank.

The team proposes the installation of an active water sensor directly onto the main water pipe prior to the pump. This allows early detection in the case of a supply influx of lower quality water before they even reach the pumps. With the ability to instantaneously detect these fluctuations, the pump can be set to automatically withhold its operation. A solenoid-controlled pilot valve can then be programmed to shut off so that the brownish water do not travel any farther. This prevents dirty water from ever reaching the water tanks. It would nullify the need to wash and flush the water tanks, saving time and reduce the wastage of water in the occurrence of the inevitable batch of discoloured water.

2.2 Water purifier/treatment system installed in water tanks
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC,2009) states that water contamination can occur even in the safest tap water supply. The article also states that one of the causes of contamination could be the ‘improperly maintained’ pipeworks. The idea of installing water purifier/treatment system in water tanks is to ensure that water quality is maintained clean when it is being drawn out from water tank. In the event of contamination of water supply, water treatment system can be in place to purify the water/keep the contamination to the bare minimal. Some of the common methods of water treatment system includes filtration, disinfection, distillation, water purifiers or a combination of the mentioned methods. The water treatment system to rectify the issue that was mentioned in this report can include:

2.2.1 Ultra-violet(UV) purification

According to waterpurifier.org, UV water purification system consists of a UV light source that produce a strong intensity radiation that can eliminate 99.99% of bacteria and render any harmful microbes sterile.

2.2.2 Ozone water purifiers

According to brighthubengineering.com, ozone water purifiers are a smaller version of those used in municipalities. Ozone water purifiers are located at the water intake point between the tank and the intake to ensure the water supply are disinfected before entering the water tank. Ozone water purifiers work by oxidizing most bacteria and bonds with many dissolved materials that result in them precipitate to the bottom of the water. Ozone water purifiers is effective in removing iron and manganese as well as freeing chlorine to kill even more microbes if used in a multiple step systems.

2.3 Installing portable water treatment plant

Our team’s third solution is the implementation of portable water treatment plant. A portable water treatment plant is generally smaller than a normal water treatment plant. So it can be installed right next to a building’s water tank itself. It will either always treating the water in the water tank or treat the water when it’s dirty from pipe leakage etc. It can act as a backup solution to the first solution. Although the water treatment plant affects the water pressure due to the filtration process. Fortunately, there is a water pump after the filtration process to allow the water to travel to each household.

Benefits of proposed solutions

3.1 Benefits for Solution 1 

To preserve the water quality, it is important to monitor the water parameters.

With the installation of the active water sensor, it minimizes the effect on measurement accuracy from contamination and improves the accuracy at higher turbidites and the tolerance of a range of particle sizes.

3.2 Benefits for Solution 2 

Water treatment system is a combination of different components that complement each other to achieve the optimal result. Water treatment system helps to keep the water quality within the drinking standard by removing most of the impurities in the scope of micro-organism. Water is separated from unwanted substance once it has been purified. Water treatment system does not require too much humans intervene as to control how it works. Water treatment systems are able to obtain the main objective of keeping the water quality to be within the drinking standard of WHO/prevent people from drinking contaminated water.

Drawbacks of proposed solution

4.1 Drawbacks for Solution 1

A sole electrical sensor acting as a preventive measure to ensure a constantly-clean water supply means that its reliability is a huge concern. There would be a need for regular maintenance for the sensor; it might relate to increased cost for the FM of SIT@Punggol if 3rd party contractors were to be hired for regular maintenance on an ad-hoc basic

A guarantee-contract with the sensor manufacturer for regular scheduled maintenance would be recommended, as long-term contracts tend to be cheaper in the long run.

4.2 Drawback for Solution 2

Water treatment system requires all components to be in working condition. In event of spoilt/damaged components, water treatment system would not be as effective in acquiring its objective of purifying water. Considerable amount of energy consumption would be required to allow water treatment system to run at all times as a preventive measure against contaminated water. Constant check schedule has to be made to identify if the water treatment system is working. The drawbacks of water treatment system can result in a worse water quality if maintenance is not done consistently. Hence, daily maintenance is required for water treatment system to work efficiently and effectively. Water treatment system might be considered an ‘overkill’ as a preventive measure contamination in water due to leakage in pipes since the water supply has already been treated before.