Stormpillow Filtration System for Stormwater Runoff Treatment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing stormwater filtration systems face challenges such as high contamination levels in runoff, difficult installation, costly and time-consuming maintenance, and inability to manage high rainfall intensity, leading to potential overflows and drainage blockages.
Innovation Solution
The Stormpillow filtration system uses a customizable combination of zeolite, perlite, and granular activated carbon filter media, with an adjustable design and overflow system, allowing for easy installation and maintenance, and effective treatment of contaminants like plastics, heavy metals, and hydrocarbons, while avoiding intrusive construction and managing high rainfall events without energetic costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional filtration systems are used for stormwater treatment, then contaminant removal is achieved, but installation complexity and maintenance costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The filtration system is divided into modular pillow-shaped units that can be independently installed and maintained. Each module contains filter media wrapped in a flexible pillowcase with guiding frames, allowing individual replacement without affecting the entire system. This segmentation reduces installation complexity while maintaining contaminant removal efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The filter media is enclosed in a flexible pillowcase that adapts to the drainage inlet geometry. The flexible shell allows easy installation and removal without rigid structural constraints, significantly reducing installation and maintenance complexity while preserving the filtration function for contaminant removal.
2Reliability
If fixed-size filtration systems are installed, then treatment performance is consistent, but adaptability to different drain inlet dimensions is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The guiding frame includes adjustable elements that can be modified on-site to match different drainage inlet dimensions. The adjustable design allows the system to adapt to various sizes while maintaining consistent treatment performance through proper positioning of the filter media within the pillowcase structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The system allows modification of physical parameters such as the dimensions of the guiding frame and the amount of filter media to match specific application requirements. This parameter adjustment capability enables adaptability to different drain inlet dimensions while preserving reliable treatment performance.
3Reliability
If overflow protection is added to manage high rainfall intensity, then drainage blockage is prevented, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The overflow protection function is integrated into the existing pillowcase structure through the guiding frame design. The guiding frame includes overflow openings that combine the filtration function with overflow protection, preventing drainage blockage during high rainfall without adding separate complex overflow structures.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Stormpillow effectively treats stormwater runoff contaminants, reduces maintenance costs, and prevents overflows, ensuring environmental protection and compliance with discharge limits through its innovative design and filter media composition.
Implementation Method 1
Treatment (physical, physicochemical and adsorption) of stormwater runoff flowing on impermeable surfaces through the simple installation of Stormpillows into existing catchments and the use of a selected mixture of filter media
Implementation Method 2
By passing through the material, stormwater overcomes the filtration process and adsorption of contaminants, with the removal of also the dissolved substances
Data Source
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AI summary
The new system, Stormpillow, deals with contaminated runoff stormwater before it goes to the drainage channel and water bodies. A well-designed technology is fitted into a drainage inlet without modifying or manipulating the drainage or hydraulic infrastructure architecture. The Stormpillow design is adaptable to any size or shape of drainage architecture. Most pollutants such as hydrocarbons, microplastics, microplastic, heavy metals, coarse and small debris, and dissolved ones are removed by taking advantage of the filter media composition in the bag (pillowcase). The main advantages of the system, which distinguish it from other similar systems on the market, are increased hydraulic efficiency, extremely low operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, ease of installation and maintenance, adaptability to any size and shape of the drainage system of the catchment, and the presence of the entire treatment media (granular activated carbon, zeolite, and perlite) in the pillowcase, which improves treatment efficiency. These advantages distinguish the system from other filtration technologies on the market. The technology has a well-designed overflow mechanism equipped with traping mesh (capturing debris and other coarse materials associated with the stormwater) that ensures the system's high efficiency in the face of high stormwater intensity and frequency. In addition to being very easy to install, build, and maintain, Stormpillow is also quite relatively affordable. It is not only adaptable to any size and shape of the drain's inlet due to the highly practical design of Stormpillow's body (guiding frame), but there is also an adjustable design that provides the possibility of being modified on the site in the occasion that there is any error in the measurement of the dimension of the drain inlet or any other obstacle to setting up Stormpillow. As a result of the filtering materials that are used in Stormpillow, contaminated stormwater runoff may be addressed on a large scale without having to take into consideration the hydraulic structure architectural design. In addition to being very effective at preventing pollution, the design of the overflow decreases the likelihood that polluted runoff will either be diverted around the system or overflow.