Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH)

Research scope:

• Address deficiencies of standard monitoring of development programs through surveys that are unreliable and often result in over-reporting
• Instrumented monitoring can provide objective data points
• Monitoring used for EcoZoom high efficiency stoves and LifeStraw Family Water Filter

• Portland State University
• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• DelAgua Rwanda Ltd.
• Christina Barstow

Research scope:

• Develop innovative toilet concept that is waterless, off-grid, affordable and creates useful products out of human waste.
• Built a Phase I research prototype to present at the World Toilet Fair in New Delhi, India in 2014.
• Sol-Char Toilet uses concentrated solar power transmitted through fiberoptic cables to convert human waste to char, a benign, odorless, charcoal-like product that can be used as solid fuel or fertilizer.

Funded by: 

• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Reinvent the Toilet Challenge

Learn more: Solchar Toilet

Research scope: 

• Provide reliable, clean drinking water using UV disinfection while creating local business opportunities for manufacturing, marketing, and maintaining the systems. 
• Prototype developed and tested using simple construction techniques and materials widely available in developing communities.
• Needs further testing, market study, feasibility test and business model, field testing.

Research scope:

• Evaluation of Community Water Treatment Plants (pictured) and Point-of-Use Sawyer Filters in Amazon communities
• Chemical and operational water treatment optimization
• Water treatment plant operator training
• Water quality testing
• 22 graduate students participated over four year project

Funded by:

• National Science Foundation International Research Experiences for Students (NSF-IRES)

Collaborators:

• CONAPAC Peru (NGO)
• Universidad Nacional De La Amazonía Peruana (UNAP)