Bug-killing book pages clean murky drinking water

[webfact]

Bug-killing book pages clean murky drinking water
By Jonathan Webb

(BBC) A book with pages that can be torn out to filter drinking water has proved effective in its first field trials.

The "drinkable book" combines treated paper with printed information on how and why water should be filtered.

Its pages contain nanoparticles of silver or copper, which kill bacteria in the water as it passes through.

In trials at 25 contaminated water sources in South Africa, Ghana and Bangladesh, the paper successfully removed more than 99% of bacteria.

The resulting levels of contamination are similar to US tap water, the researchers say. Tiny amounts of silver or copper also leeched into the water, but these were well below safety limits.

Full story: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33954763


-- BBC 2015-08-17

[catterwell]

The Copper or Silver needs to be ionised; it works! My pool system uses Cu ions to kill bacteria (so no chlorine needed). The amount required is about 0.4-0.5 ppm; whereas the WHO maximum Copper content for drinking water is 2.0 ppm. Like many things, the concept was developed by NASA and then used on the Apollo moonshots.

[Seastallion]

Wow. Awesome.

Sounds expensive, though. How many times can a page be used...ie, how many litres will a page filter before it needs to be changed?

[JetsetBkk]

Wow. Awesome.

Sounds expensive, though. How many times can a page be used...ie, how many litres will a page filter before it needs to be changed?

You didn't read the link, then.

[halloween]

You could kill the bacteria by putting in a clear plastic bottle and leaving it in the sun for a few hours. But you would still have to filter it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection

[catterwell]

Wow. Awesome.

Sounds expensive, though. How many times can a page be used...ie, how many litres will a page filter before it needs to be changed?

The article says 100 litres per page and adds that one book "could" last four years. The ions that detach from the "nano particles" can be either silver or copper, but copper is cheaper and does the job. There may be some circumstances where you don't want to use copper, then silver (or other metals such as titanium) are options.

I guess the one drawback is that you have to keep the book pretty dry before use. But overall a brilliant and plausible idea.