Pump System

At the beginning of the project, our group expected the need for a pump to be ordered and an automation system to be implemented. After going through our design, we reused the pump for last year’s senior design group so there was no need to order another one. The current pump has a flow of 1 GPM, 12 V and 3.5A maximum rating, and 40psi cut off pressure. These criteria all fit the design since there is a 120 V to 5V and 12 V converter and will not surpass any of the other maximum thresholds.

At the current state of our microplastic removal system, there is no automation. The electronic control box has on/off switches to control the washer, pump, and electromagnets. Future work could include making these systems automated off one system if timing was considered. However, this would involve coding and other machine learning methods to implement. This would be more feasible if the microplastic removal system was a continuous process whereas our design is a batch process.