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"Lifesaver Bottle" Filters Viruses Out of Water
gihan_ripper writes "British inventor Michael Pritchard has developed a small self-contained filter system that instantly cleans water, removing all particles larger than 15nm. He said that he was inspired after seeing the effects of Hurricane Katrina and the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004; people had to wait for many days to get fresh water and many died from drinking contaminated water. The filter is so effective that it can purify dirty river water and even fecal matter. His bottle will shortly be available for sale from Lifesaver Systems at an expected cost of £190 (approx. $385)."
This sounds like what was in Dune... A rehydrator from excrement (sweat, fecal matter, urine).
If anything, along with rebreathers and this rehydrator, one could stay in horrendously inhospitable areas for a long while.
Fantastic idea, except for the fact that anyone in the path of Katrina who could have afforded a $385 water bottle could have afforded a $90 plane ticket, $35 bus ride, or $27 tank of gas.
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Pee is not toxic. So, unless you rather wait for a good tasting liquid than survive, there is no problem.
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
He can't just pull the raw materials and equipment to make these out of his butt, dipshit. Those have a non-zero cost, and for a superfine filter like he's making the cost of production must be non-trivial.
It it sees widespread production, the cost will go down (economies of scale) and advances in materials science and manufacturing techniques could also get the price down. Eventually.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
If this can deliver 4,000 liters at under $1 a liter, and is shipped empty, it's cheaper than shipping pallets of bottled water for military and aid organizations. And when mass production hits, I can see this becoming popular with campers, tourists, business travellers and others.
And on that subject, jackasses like this are why it's hard to help anyone:
Of course, if "there is decent water resource management in the country" in the first place, none of this would be necessary. And never mind that if I'd have to make a trek for water anyway, I'd prefer it to be clean when I got there.
If the LifeStraw at $3.00 will actually hurt women and girls and not solve the rest of society's ills, I can only imagine what Mr. Hetherington would think about a model that cost 100x more.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
It's true abortion is such a waste. A few more months and I could have cooked and ate that baby.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
During something like Katrina, there is a lot more crap in the water than just bacteria.
What does this thing do with gasoline, pesticides, and other chemicals coming out of drowned cars, stores, homes, and factories? If it isn't removing these chemicals, then you can't be sure the processed water is safe to drink. You will probably see a lot of sick people who relied on this product, and got poisoned because of the false sense oc security.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
You do realize that 15nm is .015 microns, right?
This isn't a micron filter. A micron filter has pores a few orders of magnitude too large to filter out viruses.
This one, however, does filter viruses.
It wasn't the hurricane that was the problem. It was the levies. Had the levees not broken, we would not be talking about Katrina today.
...and don't even get me started on the emergency response.
Obviously, they are related because the levees would not have broken without the hurricane. But the point here is that the Hurricane did remarkably little damage on it's own. The levees, on the other hand, were responsible for almost all of the issues you read about today.
Just another example of the edges starting to fray with respect to our national infrastructure. Without the levee issues, Katrina isn't special. Powerful? yes. Scary? yes. Destructive? Not really, when compared to something like Andrew or Hugo.