Mangrove Water

2026 · Water · Mechanical Design

At Mangrove Water, I worked on the mechanical design and prototyping for a passive chlorination system that can be mounted on any handpump.

Background

Over 2.1 billion people still do not have access to safe drinking water, and a huge number rely on handpumps that are vulnerable to contamination from pathogens like E. coli and Giardia. Mangrove Water already had a working inline chlorination concept called TuriTap, but handpump geometry varies a lot, so installation, flow behavior, and backflow were real problems. My role was to lead the mechanical side, including CAD, FEA, fast prototype cycles, and close coordination with field testing.

Technical architecture

The final system has two main parts. The first is a front offset mount made in PET and ASA for better UV durability, secured with worm clamps, U bolts, and gaskets that can fit different spout sizes. The second is a lofted adapter that aligns the handpump outlet to the TuriTap inlet while keeping head loss low at about 3 kPa. We went through more than 10 prototypes in PLA and PETG, scoring each against criteria like structural load, overflow reduction, tamper resistance, and modularity. FEA helped validate stiffness and torque behavior, and bench tests checked overflow delay, pull out force, and install time with simple tools.