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'Drinkable Book' Pages Clean Dirty Drinking Water
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists have developed what they're calling the "Drinkable Book," which contains pages that can be torn out and used to effectively filter drinking water. The book has just completed a series of field trials in a few African countries, and it successfully removed more than 99% of the bacteria in water taken from contaminated sources, bringing it in line with U.S. tap water. The book's pages are imprinted with nanoparticles of silver and copper, which sterilize a wide range of microorganisms. The lead researcher says each page can filter about 100 liters of water before needing to be discarded. The team currently makes all the pages by hand, so their next step will be to find a way to automate production.
Wy? It isn't like silver and copper aren't muned in Africa.
It's just they export it elsewhere.
XKCD on hand sanitizer.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
So, since the book contains instructions and reasons for filtering water and the pages get consumed as filters, what happens when you are 6 months in and half the book is gone? Why not just make a big stack of filters and a small pamphlet on how/why to use them?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Even scarier is it will spread the concept that "a page from a book can make your drinking water safe" among the populace there if it DID catch on. Will the average person realize that it has to be a book with this specific kind of filter paper?
Seems like a bad plan all around.
Didn't we determine that nano silver is toxic to the environment?
You want to get this to all the nations of the world where safe potable water is scarce? Just convince the Christians to print their bibles using this paper and take those versions on their mission trips. It could be the first time in history that the word of [the Christian] God was used to truly save someone.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
....proves successful.
Isn't that a more accurate description?
I would think it would make more sense to invest time and energy into making existing filtration systems that can be mass produced and use simple materials would be more beneficial than one, when used correctly, loses half its value over time (the book part).
Why not use the machines that Dean Kamen's company has already designed, and Coca-Cola is distributing and installing? Why go nano-technology and dead-tree paper books?
While it's a nice idea that that may save you from carrying a book AND a water filter (in whatever rare circumstances this might matter) this finally allows for text books that are consumed and can't be handed down from one generation to the next.
Next step: Water quality at US colleges is reduced to levels that require filtering with textbook pages.
bickerdyke
Silver-impregnated bandage pads work wonders on wounds. I don't know why they aren't more readily available
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
What's a few million microbes between friends?
They banned deoderants containing silver in some places, didn't they ? Because silver is one of the shrinking number of working antibiotics.
"bringing it in line with U.S. tap water"
Meaning it still may stink of rotten eggs, contain deadly arsenic and it also may catch fire at the tap.
How is this any different from the LifeStraw?
Having the filter in a piece of paper seems less practical and more prone to error i.e. water spilling over the side. You also require multiple containers. A dirty container from which to pour the water, and a clean container for storage.
Note: I am in no way affiliated with LifeStraw and have never used the product.
Those thin bible pages made good rolling paper in a pinch.
And I've worked for a few PHBs that probably ate their school books.
Have gnu, will travel.
Sure, and processing copper and silver into nanoparticle paper coatings is also commonly done in Africa by Africans?
Not much of a headline when you remove the funny name that was just invested for marketing:
New Filters Clean Dirty Drinking Water
Help build the anti-software-patent wiki
Technically, the micropores would make it their holey book.
Ezekiel 23:20
Did someone who lost their shirt in the silver band-aid business get modpoints today?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I assume the book is titled: "On the Creation of Superbugs".
us tap water is potable generally. something is wrong if your water isn't.
might not taste the best in some places, but won't kill you from infection or generally poisoning.
you might even get some of your daily dose of methane, but that's another issue entirely.
Yes, they can :
http://www.mintek.co.za/techni...
aaaaaaa
" The book's pages are imprinted with nanoparticles of silver and copper"
Both rare materials that we've passed peak production on. Seems a bad thing to base such an important invention on.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
So they took a perfectly good filter, printed on them with some kind of ink, the sewed them up into a book.
It's just a publicity stunt - and one not worth hearing about.
Exactly. Why not just manufacture the sheets in an optimal size for filtering, and keep the cost lower by not binding them or printing on them?
these sheets would be contraband, so you you need to find a way to sneak them into the country. If you print up a copy of Hunger Games using these sheets, then you can sneak in the material no problem.
you might even get some of your daily dose of methane,
But that's a made up issue entirely. Or the water already had methane...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Think again. Silver use in solar panels is on the rise. Seems a bad thing to base such an important invention on, right? (Presumably, it could be replaced in that application, but there isn't much reason for that, since today's silver, from what I understand, is largely a by-product of copper mining, so the supply is much stiffer.)
Also, "materials that we've passed peak production on"? Silver is still on the rise, and so is copper.
Ezekiel 23:20
So, I had though that at first. But, having seen a picture of the cover of the book, it says:
In English and in the local language. I believe the instructions are also on the page.
So, no, they hand made a book of water filters specifically for the purpose of being a book full of water filters.
This isn't a publicity stunt. This doesn't have anything to do with reading it. Or being a paperback
Or pretty much any damned thing you said. It's a lot more than that:
It's something designed to save lives in some of the poorest parts of the world by providing a means of getting clean water.
Seriously, RTFA now and then. This is pretty much the opposite of a pointless publicity stunt.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
http://insideclimatenews.org/n...
not made up, not a scourge, but not made up.
you always gotta remember, corporations are by design amoral. and they'll be greedy as fuck.
we need government to reign in their excesses, and you should expect as many excesses as they can get away with. but that's just the nature of the beast.
Wonder what would such a book cost?