IDEA:
L1-100 - Clean Energy Siphoning for Cleaner Waterways

PILLAR:
C - Waterborne

RESEARCH AREA:
RA1 - Environment and Energy Efficiency

TEAM NAME:
Emship 8th

TEAM MEMBERS:
Joseph Praful Tomy (Team leader)


UNIVERSITY:
University of Liege

COUNTRY:
BELGIUM

ABSTRACT:
Siphoning may refer to the process by which water is
raised over a crest and discharged at a lower level. A practical siphon works
because the gravity pull on water from the lower column of water creates a
reduced pressure at the crest in a siphon, thereby allowing the water in the
taller column of liquid to rise above the crest. Once the siphon system is
established it works on practically no input of energy, as long as the water
keeps flowing from the gravity. The practical applications of siphoning would
typically include regulating irrigation water, flushing toilets, cleaning
aquarium dirt, so on and so forth. 

Inland
waterways around the world are often clogged by unwanted waste materials and
weeds that make them non-navigable. An efficient device that would help clear
these unwanted material is a need of the hour to streamline the inland water
transportation. This report presents a proposal to use the principle of
siphoning to build an ‘inland water siphon-cleaner’ that would suck up the
floating waste material from the surface of the waterways. The proposal also
includes how this system can be incorporated to the design of an inland barge
that could function in a waterway cleaning initiative. Furthermore, as the
siphoning process in itself does not involve use of external machinery, this
can also be thought of as an efficient and clean energy initiative to keep the
waterways clean and navigable.