UBC engineers have found a way to help remote communities gain access to drinking water by creating an affordable water-purification system that doesn’t use chemicals.
The system uses membrane tubes to filter non-potable water into drinkable water, a technique West Vancouver, Abbotsford, and several other B.C. communities already use. But those conventional membrane filters for water use chemicals to keep the membranes from getting clogged up, and UBC professor Pierre
Berube has found a way to use gravity to rinse the membranes periodically, erasing the need for chemical cleaners.