[00:00.10]From VOA Learning English,
[00:02.38]this is the Agriculture Report.
[00:05.56]Students at the University of Virginia
[00:08.60]have developed a new way of purifying water.
[00:13.08]They say it could bring improved water quality
[00:16.41]to millions of people in the developing world.
[00:19.97]They called it MadiDrop.
[00:22.41]Field testing begins recently in South Africa.
[00:26.26]The laboratory in which the MadiDrop is made
[00:30.25]operates like a kitchen.
[00:32.89]Workers add ingredients and mix, weigh, press and bake.
[00:41.42]What the workers are making
[00:43.46]is a ceramic disc that contains silver.
[00:47.45]When the disc is dropped in water,
[00:49.79]silver ions are released to purify the water.
[00:54.12]Ions are atoms that have an electrical charge.
[00:58.20]Testing at the University of Virginia
[01:01.74]shows that the disc produces clean, safe water.
[01:06.27]Beeta Ehdaie is a doctoral candidate at UVA.
[01:11.11]"It's not just about making a really great technology
[01:15.17]that effectively removes or kills bacteria and pathogens.
[01:20.22]It's about making a low cost, simple to use one,
[01:24.06]tailored to people in developing countries
[01:26.10]who don't have many resources."
[01:27.54]The students are experimenting with different sizes of MadiDrops
[01:32.27]to match them with different sized water containers.
[01:36.31]Why the name "MadiDrop"?
[01:39.28]The word "madi" means water in Tshivenda,
[01:43.56]a language of Limpopo Province in South Africa.
[01:47.54]There, fifty women run a factory that makes water filters.
[01:52.57]The university started the factory last summer.
[01:57.17]The women mix sawdust and clay to make flower pot shaped filters
[02:02.66]that they use to purify drinking water.
[02:06.26]The water flows through the filters
[02:09.26]is which trap bacteriaand solid particles.
[02:12.49]The factory sells the filters to local families.
[02:16.52]Manager Certinah Khashane says
[02:21.32]the work has changed the women's lives.
[02:23.87]"When they get money for those pots,
[02:26.98]they just buying school uniform for their children."
[02:30.94]But the MadiDrop is smaller and less expensive than the filters.
[02:36.42]Over the next few months,
[02:38.27]students will test the MadiDrop in South Africa.
[02:41.94]Maggie Montgomery is a water expert
[02:45.57]with the World Health Organization.
[02:48.52]Over Skype, she explained what field testing should show.
[02:52.90]"Do they find it convenient,
[02:54.35]does it have a certain taste they don't like to the water,
[02:57.88]what happens once it becomes exhausted?"
[03:01.32]If the testing is successful,
[03:04.36]the South African women will make and sell the MadiDrops.
[03:08.46]The goal is to expand such factories to other developing countries
[03:14.45]and improve millions of lives each year.
[03:18.69]Jim Smith is a UVA engineering professor.
[03:23.16]He leads the project.
[03:25.25]"Imagine a magic stone and you take this magic stone
[03:29.64]and you drop it in your water container.
[03:31.43]It purifies the water and makes it safe to drink.
[03:34.87]And then imagine that this magic stone only costs a few dollars.
[03:38.90]That's what a MadiDrop is."
[03:41.34]Professor Smith says he has received calls
[03:44.82]from companies that want to make the MadiDrop.
[03:48.26]And that's the Agriculture Report from VOA Learning English.
[03:53.47]I'm Christopher Cruise.