Future Files:Suction-powered Water Filtration Will Save Lives
Posted On: 23 August 2005 By: Jay Oatway Filed Under: Climate Burn | Future-Stuff-That-Goes-Ping | Leap-frogging Poverty | One Word: "Plastics"
Making water drinkable is a basic human neccessity. However, in this era of advanced technology, more than one billion people � one sixth of the world�s population - still lack a potable water supply. 
Everyday, nearly 6,000 people � mainly children � die in connection with unsafe drinking water. The world�s most prolific killer though is diarrhoeal disease from bacteria like typhoid, cholera, e. coli, salmonella and many others. But technology is on the way that will make unsafe water a problem of the past: The aptly-named LifeStraw a 25 cm long, 29 mm diameter, plastic pipe filter costing around US$2.00 (twice the average day’s wage in the developing world). [via Gizmag] According to the MedGadget report:
What first meets the water when sucked up is a pre-filter of PE filter textile with a mesh opening of 100 micron, shortly followed by a second textile filter in polyester with a mesh opening of 15 micron. In this way all big articles are filtered out, even clusters of bacteria are removed. Then the water is led into a chamber of iodine impregnated beads, where bacteria, viruses and parasites are killed. The second chamber is a void space, where the iodine being washed off the beads can maintain their killing effect. The last chamber consists of granulated active carbon, which role is to take the main part of the bad smell of iodine, and to take the parasites that have not been taken by the pre-filter or killed by the iodine. The biggest parasites will be taken by the pre-filter, the weakest will be killed by the iodine, and the medium range parasites will be picked up by the active carbon. The main interest to everyone is the killing of bacteria, and here our laboratory reading tells us that we have a log. 7 to log 8 kill of most bacteria. This is better than tap water in many developed countries.
This sure beats the old recipe for clean water, which involved coffee grounds, cowshit, and clay. The future sucks.
