Mike Bullivant's diary about the challenge for the Rover programme, from the BBC/OU series Rough Science 4
Day Two
By the end of day two I’ve managed to show that you can remove the dyes from different food colourings using this process and these adsorbents, so I’m confident it’ll work when I come to purify Ellen’s and Iain’s water samples. Only problem is that they’ve not been very successful in collecting any samples at all so far. Looks like it’s going to be a last-minute rush to get my part of the challenge completed, which is often the case when you’re relying on someone else to provide the raw materials for your contribution. Guess I’ll just have to sit it out and wait… There's little else I can do.
Day Three
I’m all ready to go, having packed four columns with charcoal ready to take the different water samples – when Iain and Ellen arrive with their water samples! But I have only a few hours in which to clean the samples up, and this process, I know, is going to take time. They have to percolate down the columns slowly in order for the separation of impurities to take place. By 4 pm it’s clear that I’m not going to do it. This just isn’t going to work. In desperation, I try forcing the liquids down the columns under pressure in order to get at least something out at the bottom that we can blind test. In the circumstances, I'm just going to have to do the best I can in the short time available (Producer's note: In the programme there wasn’t time to show the clever pumping system that Mike used to force water through the columns.)
In the end, things work out better than I expected. Most of the dirty water samples have been cleaned up quite dramatically, but only one – the solar still water - passes Iain's blind-tasting test. It would have worked much better if I’d had more time to work on them. Not a good start to the series, but then again, not entirely a total failure either.
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Content last updated: 18/07/2006
