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Researchers Develop "Tea Bag" Water Filter
cybernanga writes "A group of researchers in South Africa has developed a filter that can purify water straight from the bottle. The filter sits inside a tube fitted on top of a bottle and purifies water as it is poured on a cup. From the article: 'The designer behind the filter, Dr Eugene Cloete, from the Stellenbosch University in South Africa, says the filter is only as big as an ordinary tea bag. He says the product is cost-effective and easy to use. "We are coming in here at the fraction of the cost of anything else that is currently on the market," says Dr Cloete on BBC World Service.'"
Molecular paper thin water filters.
It's almost as if someone invented a disposable Brita water filter!
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
So, it removes bacteria, but what about viruses, dont they need UV or RO to be removed??
"We cover the tea bag material with nano-structured fibres, and instead of tea inside the tea bag, we incorporate activated carbon.
"The function of the activated carbon is to remove most of the dangerous chemicals that you would find in water."
1. It would have to be one shot - I don't see that little bag filtering more than one bottle.Wouldn't that little bit of carbon be exhausted after 500ml?
2. The pour rate would have to be really slow so that the water stays in contact with the carbon long enough to absorb the toxic stuff. Five minutes+ for a cup of water??
3. It doesn't say anything about metals.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
and does not make inappropriate sexual comments about Tea Partygoers.
I thought Teabaggers were all for restoring the rights given by the constitution, regardless as to whether what's being said doesn't agree with their worldview?
Oh, sorry, I got caught up in theory and rhetoric.
A doctor that I knew back in the '70s did volunteer work for the World Health Organization, and spent a lot of time in some god-awful places. He told me that they would use Clorox bleach to purify their water. One cap full for a bucket of water. It tasted terrible, but as for the alternative for an industrial scale case of diarrhea . . . it was the lesser of two evils.
So I wonder how cheap this gadget is compared to Clorox?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
http://www.campmor.com/aquamira-water-bottle-filter-kit.shtml?source=CI&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=25674WC
For example, is what I have had for years to take backpacking. And they aren't even expensive. I guess I don't see how this is innovative.
I suppose the only problems would be the fuel (wood and other biofuel consumption would suddenly take a hike), training (operating the still), and maintenance (cleaning the crud out).
Materials, portability, scalability, possibility of being used by small children, safety of use, etc.
They're looking for something they can airdrop on refugees.
You can't take the sky from me...
I don't know about the "nano-fibers", though I've gotten to be suspicious of "nano" as a meaningless marketing term like "cyber" was ten years ago, but activated carbon's efficacy as a filter depends on how long it is kept in contact with the water, which is why those pricey tap filters are generally a waste of money. It's probably better than nothing if you're drinking water out of a stream or lake, but I'd be genuinely surprised if it was much better than nothing.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Better article says:
The inside of the tea bag material is coated with a thin film of biocides encapsulated within minute nanofibres, which kills all disease-causing microbes.
The bag is filled not with tea leaves but with active carbon granules that remove all harmful chemicals, for instance endocrine disruptors.
Each "tea bag" filter can clean one litre of the most polluted water to the point where it is 100% safe to drink.
Once used, the bag is thrown away, and a new one is inserted into the bottle neck.
Sounds good, but doesn't remove fine particulates or heavy metals, so you have to prefilter and chose your water source wisely (check arsenic contamination maps....)
Be very careful with the clorox method. The clorox product line is quite different today and you probably do not want to use the versions with stain removers and other additives for water purification. From the clorox website:
... Only Clorox Regular-Bleach, of all the bleaches mentioned on this website, is approved for sanitization and disinfection. ..."
"Disinfection of Drinking Water (Potable)
Also, does this approach work from bacteria to virus to cryptosporidium? My understanding is that the old school iodine tablets don't work on the later and that the military and NGOs have moved to chlorine dioxide based tablets. Much better tasting too. The caveat is that it takes something like 4 hours to kill the crypto compared to something like 15 to 30 minutes for the lesser "bugs". Being chlorine based maybe clorox could work with crypto but they don't seem to offer concentration or time guidelines. Perhaps they are just addressing North American concerns, maybe their sites for other parts of the world offer advice?
Answering my own question:
"Results of the present study show for the first time that C. parvum oocysts exposed to undiluted laundry bleach for as long as 120 min are infectious for animals. Although bleach is widely used as a bacterial and viral disinfectant, the present findings indicate that under practical conditions it is not an effective disinfectant for C. parvum oocysts."
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/61/2/844.pdf
Calling it a "tea bag" filter even though you don't use it like one (that is, place it in cup and let it sit for a while) is misleading. Should we call it a "USB thumb drive" water filter just because it's a similar size?
Another advantage over boiling water that I can think of is that these filters cannot (easily) be used for anything else. If you need firewood/fuel to sterilize your water, you might face the choice of either the meat or the water being raw when you have limited fuel (or more likely porridge of some sort will take the fuel, since meat is a luxury). This filter makes the water pure, making the fuel available for other things by default.
Yeah, theory and rhetoric often clash with reality.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
It gets rid of those liberal microbes.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Wrong! Teabaggers are just another radical religeo/political movement that uses misinformation and outright lies to influence an ignorant public and gain members and momentum.
Recall the recent Beck rally on the steps of the Lincoln memorial.
WARNING SIGN: Beck states "religion and christianity have returned to America"
Same old christian coalition bullshit, different wrapper: "Separation of church and state is a luxury we can no longer afford"
"Separation of church and state" was put into our Constitution for a very good reason.
The teabaggers, Beck, and Palin out to give the illusion that their actions and motivations are faith based. The reality is that they are merely whores, willing to say and do anything for a buck, or the highest bidder, in the case of Beck and Palin
Disclaimer: I view all politicians and politics with ire and hate them all universally. Politics today is nothing short of organized crime.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
Not only is there the dubious claim that this will make water safe, and the implication that it is somehow different from other activated charcoal filters already made, but they stress how cheap or affordable it is, without ever giving any indication of a price. When someone tells you that something is inexpensive but doesn't want to tell you how much it will cost in any quantity, it will not be inexpensive.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
no no no. this one has a different cap.
Yes, the whole point of the TEA party is to give other people a group to demonize so that they won't turn on people in power. In two years when the presidency is up again there will be a ton of conservatives spouting TEA party lines to get elected. The people who really believe in minimalistic government and a return to the constitution won't be found in the media or any mainstream political party. Everyone in the "middle" just wants more control over us. When you vote democrat or republican all you're doing is deciding which area of your life gets the increased government control. Extremism is the only way we as a nation will accomplish anything meaningful with our political situation. Our history of moderation and compromise in everything has brought us to where we are today--a political hellscape of unimaginable proportions.
Hardly news.
"Half the cost of anything else out there" is very nice, but doesn't tell us much. Wandering around the web, I find the lowest (retail) cost to be around $.50/gallon for single packaged filters. (Which will obviously be considerably lower in bulk and/or multi-packaged.)
Not sure what the Jehovah's Witness does for their worship or belief, with exception they are always there to knock on my door during dinner and hand me some crap declaring how much better the world is getting with each passing day.
Most Seventh Day Adventists however actually attend a traditional protestant church service. The difference is they observe the original "Seventh Day Sabbath" hence the name, as the Jewish faith does. There are NO similarities though between Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witness's. The only grouping together in that they are both faith based religions, and nothing more.
The idea of Sunday worship came out of the church of Rome and was implemented at their beginning to entice the roman sun worshiping "pagans" to attend their services along with the early Christian followers. It was a cash flow thing to maximize tithes and offerings.
Modern day protestantism observes the catholic sunday worship day even though in their beginning, during the reformation, they also observed the Saturday seventh day sabbath. Today there isn't much difference between the pagan rituals, superstitions, and beliefs of the roman church and modern protestantism.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
Reality has a well known liberal bias.
Good post. You obviously read my disclaimer being you didn't flame me. ..
Too bad politics and life today is nothing short of stupidity in action.
I have little faith we will be able to free ourselves from the slime that encumbers us these days.
Those in power keep the masses in ignorance and darkness. Very effective method of control
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
There are NO similarities though between Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witness's.
They both worship the god of Abraham.
I wonder if a similar principal could be used to purify water after an oil spill?
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Not quite, they are in favor of restoring the rights they like from the constitution, and then removing the first, 14th, and any other ammendments they don't like, and placing a wonderful totalitarian theocracy on top of it, rewriting our history, fucking all of the poor people until they live in tent cities or just flat out die, eliminating our education system and making church mandatory, and eliminating all non-christian thinking, as according to them it is a lie from the pit of hell.
Also, they plan to do so by demonizing anything and everything that isn't so conservative it makes you want to kill yourself for supporting such bastards, and their sick cruel ways.
If you don't believe me just watch 15 minutes of Glenn Beck, right down everything he says and fact check it. If he gets even 1 point correct, I would be extremely surprised. The bastard gets off on telling blatant lies and fabricating elaborately false analogies to convince people that the otherwise ridiculous is not just plausible but if you deny it then you should be stoned to death.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Vote for someone who cares! Basic Campfire for President 2012!
"They're looking for something they can airdrop on refugees."
Ouch.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"I thought Teabaggers were all for restoring the rights given by the constitution, regardless as to whether what's being said doesn't agree with their worldview?"
That would conflict with being the same Religious Right who Karl Rove so brilliantly exploited in the past. Rove is mostly out of the current game, but it's being played by very capable (and rich) people.
Unwitting and very earnest sock puppets are still sock puppets:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Inexpensive filter straws have been around for years. I don't see how this is that much better. There was nothing in the article about price or effectiveness of the filter itself. All we have is the designer's opinion, and of course he's naturally going to praise his own invention.
i see a hole in your logic. How can there be a totalitarian state with a constitutionally limited government with majority of powers delegated to the states and with no public education brainwashing the masses? and how on earth the US survived the 19th century? There were no centralized education systems, no social security and no mandatory health insurance, no federal reserve micromanaging the economy.
not an USian here: if i am not mistaken Tea Party came to life as a result of grassroot efforts tied to the Ron Paul's presidential campaign of 2008 in rep party. Originally it was about returning to the strict constitutionalism - nothing more, nothing less.
Now it becomes a sad caricature of its former self as Palins and Becks, seeing the growing discontent among masses and TP's numbers, decided to steal the momentum of the movement. They hijacked it for their own goals, twisting the founding principles.
It's crystal clear that they unfortunately succeeded, because the father of the movement (Ron Paul) is not mentioned even once in this comment chain and the Tea Party is perceived as a bunch of primitive, thought free, religious loonies and Palin and Beck are called their leaders.
I thought using the sun is good enough: Fill a PET bottle with water, leave it on your roof for a week. Given some African sun the water should be nearly sterile by then.
...
But then what about: the possible heavy metals, nasty chemicals, and what if there is no roof, and if it rains the whole week, can you wait a week,
Politics today is nothing short of organized crime.
Actually it's pro wrestling for grownups.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
If my logic had a tiny hole, yours is a supermassive black hole.
How can the government brainwash a large number of people? They don't, Fox news does, and then takes over the government. To be fair they weren't the government when they brainwashed people by somehow convincing them that all of the false shit they say (literally, take notes for fox for 5 minutes, then fact check what they say. It is all bullshit pretty much, I do this when I want to get angry and pumped). Also, I believe public education needs massive reforms, such that a high school degree is at least as good as an associates now, or putting someone on their way to a bachelors. Also, historical facts, documents, statistics, are not 'brainwashing' but telling people that trust you totally false information (fox) is. Just saying.
Are you seriously so stupid to compare the US from then to know? Know if we want to be even slightly competitive in the world we need to educate our children. In the 19th century you didn't need an education, pulling a fucking lever didn't require a degree. And for the most part poverty was covered sufficiently by private sources, and people generally lived in much worse situations than they do today.
Also, I believe we need massive health care reform still, as it will bankrupt us if we don't fix it.
And I hate the federal reserve, wish our money was actually fucking based on something so that we may still have the buying power we did in the 50s, instead of this bullshit fiat currency that only took 50 years to lower so far in value that it went from a 1 income family supporting 10 people with ease and having nice things and houses without much debt at all, to 2-3 income homes supporting 2-3 people, and them struggling like hell just to stay in their home and buy food.
It is funny how terrible of a try that was though, I debate asshats like you every day, and never are any of you able to come up with meaningful analogies, actual facts, decent points, or anything. Just the same load of comically absurd points. Although you can reply if you want, it will be funny too see how identical all of you are, and how pathetic.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,