Aqua Clara International has designed a simple, cost effective, one-bucket and two-bucket Household Filter (HHF) which can provide up to 300 liters a day of 99.999% (Log6) bacteria-free water to families living in rural and urban settings who have access to municipal, rainwater, or deep well water. This ACI Household Filter is constructed using hollow membrane technology and local materials where available.  It can be combined with sand if necessary (see Rwanda below), and is the 3^rd and smallest model ACI now offers, the others designed for use in larger applications. Filters will last 5-10 years depending on correct maintenance. Test results done by NSF can be viewed here. You can also check how the HHF compares to other filters here.

Household Filter (HF15P) in Kenya – An initial distribution of ACI Hollow Membrane Household Filters has been completed in Kenya, with ACI Community Development Entrepreneurs and Community Health Promoters each receiving one for Christmas, 2013.  Overall feedback has been positive, which has set the stage for these units to be sold throughout Kenya. View a beneficiary’s story here.

The Venture Capital fund Danone Communities evaluating Aqua Clara-Kenya requested that our two-bucket hollow membrane-based filters (2B HHFs) be tested by NSF. Because the AC-K filters employ all elements of our design as well as parts, and only provide locally-sourced buckets, we agreed to send two of our 2B HHFs to NSF in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Doing so would obviate the need to ship the same filters from Nairobi.

The results of the NSF testing showed the results we already knew; 99.9999% reduction of all harmful biological contaminants from source water.

Nicaragua – View our work and study of HHFs with AMOS Health and Hope here.

Puerto Rico – ACI has been involved on the island with the Reformed Church of America and Rotary Centennial of Colorado. Both groups have contributed 200 filters so far to families that need them most and 1,200 more were installed the summer of 2019. Many parts of the island are lacking clean water due to infrastructure damage from Hurricane Maria. Resorting to contaminated rainwater and river water, the families unable to buy bottled water were the first households to receive ACI 2-Bucket Household Filters. Currently, with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA), ACI continues to train and supply filters to families who need them most.

Dominican Republic – ACI has been working throughout Moca and Santiago and their surrounding towns with local Rotary groups along with Rotary groups of Owosso and Frankenmuth, Michigan. All together there are over 2,800 HHFs throughout the DR with 255 of the 464 the last project contained.

Yalcoba, Yucatan, Mexico – For the past 12 years, various members of the Fifth Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan have volunteered with for an organization called International Medical Assistance (IMA). IMA coordinates volunteers from all over the United States and Mexico to provide medical care to the impoverished Mayans in the areas surrounding Valladolid, Mexico. They have built a surgical center and offer free consults and surgeries, among other initiatives.

Rwanda – For several years the water mission entity of Mars Hill Church in Grandville, Michigan, 20 Liters, has been working with World Relief to construct and install ACI biosand filters in myriad villages in Rwanda. Led by Bob Johnson, a structural engineer who is also a member of the ACI design team, 20 Liters added Household Filter units Bob developed to its offerings. In the first year of this initiative the organization has placed 81 Household Filter units and 2,400 more will be built in multiple villages in 2013. Click here for more info.