Posts Tagged ‘water purification’

Water Filtration System in a Straw

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

LifeStraw makes previously contaminated water drinkable by removing bacteria and viruses.

Sometimes, it’s the simplest technologies that have the greatest potential impact on people’s lives. Take the Vestergaard Frandsen Group’s mobile personal filtration system, otherwise known as LifeStraw. It is a powder-blue plastic tube—much thicker than an ordinary straw—containing filters that make water teeming with typhoid-,cholera- and diarrhea-causing microorganisms drinkable. Now, to be clear, we do not sell this item…yet. We just love to report what’s going on out there in the water purification world.

The filters, made up of a halogenated resin, kill nearly 100 percent of bacteria and nearly 99 percent of the viruses that pass through LifeStraw. A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill evaluation tested the device’s performance in water containingEscherichia coli B and Enterococcus faecalisbacteria and the MS2 coliphage virus as well as iodine and silver. The results indicated that LifeStraw filtered out all contaminants to levels where they don’t pose a health risk to someone drinking the water.

But the device does not filter heavy metals such as iron or fluoride nor does it remove parasites like cryptosporidium or giardia, although the Switzerland-based company’s CEO, Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, says there is a version of LifeStraw available to relief groups in Bangladesh and India that can filter arsenic.

At less than 10 inches (25 centimeters) long, the device can filter up to 185 gallons (700 liters) of water, estimated to be about a year’s supply for one person. The device is no longer usable when its filters become too clogged to pass water through, typically after a year of hard use.

The success of the personal filtration system led Vestergaard Frandsen to introduce earlier this month its LifeStraw Family device, an instant microbiological purifier that provides about 2.6 gallons (10 liters) of safe drinking water in an hour and about 4,000 gallons (15,000 liters) over its life span for a family of six. LifeStraw Family is designed to sieve dirt, parasites, bacteria and viruses, and will be available starting in May.

Larry Greenemeier

www.scientificamerican.com

 

 

 

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Posted in Fun Blog, Water Filter News, Water Filters | No Comments »

What Your Unfiltered Water Contains…

Thursday, November 1st, 2012

Think about where your water comes from….and we don’t just mean the sink! Expand your mind and remember that water comes from unclean, natural resources like rivers and lakes, which contain pollution and contaminants that are unfit for consumption. To be clean, the water should undergo a number of treatments necessary to make it drinkable.

Specifically in tap water is:

  • Toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, copper, cadmium and aluminum
  • Volatile organic chemicals, such as pesticides and herbicides
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Chemicals from irresponsible manufacturers
  • Personal care chemicals
  • Household cleaning products
  • Water treatment additives such as chlorine, fluoride, and other toxic chemicals
  • Bacteria and viruses such as giardia, cryptosporidium, coliform and E-coli
  • Toxic Heavy Metals

Water purifiers are specifically designed to eliminate or reduce these certain pollutants that are in our drinking water. They also improve the quality and taste of the water by
eliminating its chlorine content.

It is virtually impossible to know what is in tap water at any given time because municipal water quality as well as private well water varies from place to place, season to season, and house to house.

Even if all of the toxic metals could be completely filtered at the local water treatment facility, they could still end up in your drinking water because rust and sediment build up in the water pipes within our homes. Even this minimal exposure can cause symptoms similar to the flu, such as headaches, diarrhea, cramps, nausea or vomiting.

The only way we can have any control over the quality of water we drink is by having a personal water filter system. Filtered drinking water is the most reliable and least expensive way to get healthy water!

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Water Filters Vs. Water Softeners – Which Do You Need?

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Depending on where you live, your drinking water may need some type of filtration, but which is right for you? Do you need a water filter or a water softener? What if you need both? How do you know which one is right for you?

Well, to answer these questions, let’s take a look at what water filters and water softeners do, then you can decide on the best solution for you and your family’s water filtration needs:

Water Softeners

So, what exactly does a water softener do and why do you need it? Well, simply, they soften hard water. Hard water is full of minerals and deposits such as calcium and magnesium. Although no harm will come to you from hard water, it’s nightmare for cleaning showers, tubs and causes problems for pipes and plumbing fixtures.

By using a water softener, you will break down the hardness or materials in the water. Different softeners use different methods including: ion, electrical and magnetics. It’s best to get your water tested to find out for sure, if you have hard water. Then decide on what method works best for you.

Water Filters

Without purifying our drinking water, you could consume things that contribute to disease and illness. To prevent this, most water treatment facilities employ chemicals such as chlorine to treat the water. This, however, introduces new problems for us. I mean, you would you want to drink something that resembles the water in a swimming pool? I didn’t think so. So counter this, there’s water filters.

Basically, water filters take out all the bad things in your water like the chlorine and other chemicals – leaving you with clean tasting and smelling drinking water. The most common filter is a carbon-based filter – it can remove the majority of chemicals in your water.

What’s Best For Your Water?

For many a water filter is all they will ever need. For others, a water softener plus water filter is a requirement. Remember how we said to test your water? Well, if you find out you have hard water, it’s best to get yourself a combination filter and softener to clean out the impurities in your drinking water. Otherwise, stick with a single water filter for your water purification needs.

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Revolutionary Personal Water Filtration

Monday, November 29th, 2010

Over 1.2 billion people around the globe don’t have access to potable water. Many of them live in the continent of Africa. So it should come as no surprise that a solution to this problem might come from an inventor who lives there.

Meet Dr. Eugene Cloete. A microbiologist by training, Cloete is currently the Dean of Natural Sciences at the University of Stellenbosch, just outside Cape Town, South Africa. In addition to his teaching ability, Dr. Cloete apparently has a knack for invention. With nine patents to his name, the first of which he earned at the age of 23, Eugene has adopted a way of thinking different than that of most peoples’. “[creativity is] like reading and writing,” said Cloete, “the more you use it, the better you get.”

With much of South Africa’s tap water riddled with disease-causing bacteria, heavy metals, and pesticide residue, something needed to be done. In short, Dr. Cloete has invented a disposable filter, which looks very similar to a tea bag, to filter water as it is poured from a bottle. Each filter is capable of ridding bacteria, heavy metals, and harmful chemicals from about 15 liters of water before it needs to be thrown away.

Cloete, an expert on inhibiting growth of bacterial slime, says he came up with the idea while on a faculty tour of his current department. He happened to notice a tea bag sitting on the break room counter when he started to explore the idea. It wasn’t until he watched a presentation at the university during which a student demonstrated how to spin nanofibers – filaments finer than human hair – that he figured out how to do it. He combined this technology with both that of the anti-bacterial membranes he had already been working on, and the traditional water filtration component activated carbon to yield the filter.

Since announcing the invention in July, Dr. Cloete and his team of two post-doctoral colleges have received hundreds of inquiries from excited philanthropists, aid organizations, and retailers. This little tea bag is sure to save lives.

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Seawater/Brackish Water Reverse Osmosis

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Reverse Osmosis, also known as hyper filtration, is the preferred method of seawater and brackish water purification. As the equipment needed to perform reverse osmosis is cost-effective, and the process requires little input energy compared to other methods of purification, reverse osmosis has become the worldwide leader among desalinization methods. Developed at UCLA, and used commercially since the 1970’s, seawater reverse osmosis has served marine professionals for nearly 40 years.

Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) is used in a wide range of commercial applications. Marine professionals such as commercial fisherman and offshore rig workers rely on SWRO to provide freshwater for routine daily tasks such as bathing, cleaning and of course, drinking.

In larger applications, such as cruise ships, SWRO is sometimes also used. In such applications, it is necessary not only to desalinize water, but to provide quality freshwater. Cruise liner restaurant professionals count on SWRO for water used for cooking, as well as making coffee, soda and other beverages. Here, consistency is key. By way of its simple yet effective design, reverse osmosis is able to consistently satisfy the needs of those who count on it.

The process itself is relatively simple and straightforward. In order to purify a liquid, the “solvent” (in this case, water) is put under pressure in excess of 250 psi for brackish water and 1000 psi for seawater, forcing it through a semi-permeable membrane. This application-specific membrane allows water molecules to pass through, but catches “solutes,” yielding purified water. When employed, reverse osmosis is capable of not only of de-salting water, but also removing other impurities such as bacteria, ions and particulates.

If you’re considering using reverse osmosis to address your water purification needs, browse our inventory of Everpure reverse osmosis filters.

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Posted in Everpure, Everpure Marine, Reverse Osmosis | 1 Comment »

Realizing the Benefits of UV Sterilization

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Ultraviolet water sterilization is a process by which the threat of microorganisms and other biological contaminants, which are present in municipal water supplies and private sources (like wells), can be effectively nullified through exposure to a specialized ultraviolet bulb.

How does it work?

Sterilization systems which employ ultraviolet radiation operate on a few simple principles. First, a UV source, which is usually as simple as a specialized light bulb, is placed inside a reflective quartz sleeve. This sleeve is placed over a flow chamber which exposes all water passing through the system to a unique, specially determined germicidal wavelength of 254 nanometers. Continue reading “Realizing the Benefits of UV Sterilization” »

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