"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)."

SpaceSuits anyone?

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.

Re:SpaceSuits anyone?

The suits weren't skintight, they captured the moisture after evaporation.

Yes, but how would they offload the waste heat, since the warm moist air couldn't just blow away into the atmosphere?

The man's name is a killing word, foo! You don't think he can fuck with thermodynamics any time he feels like it?

Re:SpaceSuits anyone?

The suits weren't skintight, they captured the moisture after evaporation.

Yes, but how would they offload the waste heat, since the warm moist air couldn't just blow away into the atmosphere?

Through a mechanism known as "this book is a work of fiction". Another option would be active cooling with fans and cooling ribs. I'm sure you could think of other options too.

Re:SpaceSuits anyone?

"In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

and condensation heats the air back up. You still have to get rid of the waste heat, somehow. Merely transfering it from the inner part of the suit to the outer is insufficient.

Re:Stilsuits

And they weren't bottles ;)

They covered your entire body and even had breathing apparatus and nose fittings to catch the moister while you breath.

When you slept at night you slept in a stilltent.

$385!?

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.

Re:$385!?

As I understand it a lot of people could have afforded to get out. However they didn't think it was going to be that bad, it's just another huricane after all, and prefered to stick it out and make sure their stuff was not looted. However once it hit, and it turned out to be bad, getting out became a problem.

Re:$385!?

I lived in South Florida for 27 years. I'm one of the first people who says "It's just another hurricane." When I saw the predictions for Katrina, even I thought anyone sticking around was stupid.

For the last time....the problem was not katrina

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.

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.

...and don't even get me started on the emergency response.

Re:For the last time....the problem was not katrin

Damn folks still thinking that Katrina only affected New Orleans. Katrina
wiped out entire cities on the Mississippi Gulf coast. Infrastructure
was destroyed for at least 100 miles inland. The military had to **cut**
their way down HWY 49 to reach the coast.

So, to correct your statement, A large percentage of New Orleans problems
were caused, post hurricane, by the failure of the levees. A large percentage
of the problems caused by directly Katrina were actually in Mississippi.

Re:For the last time....the problem was not katrin

The problem is the idea that you can keep a historic city below sea level and nothing bad will ever happen.

You seem to have forgotten about a little place called Atlantis. Thousands of years below sea-level and I've never heard any bad stories. In fact, their Chupacabra production levels are at an all-time high. I've heard that famous celebrities like Elvis Presley and Bigfoot own real-estate there...

Re:For the last time....the problem was not katrin

Well, New Orleans wasn't "built" below sea level, it just sank to that point... When it was constructed the land was chosen BECAUSE it was the highest land near the mouth of the Mississippi. The problem is the weight of the city has caused the land to sink over time, resulting in it actually being BELOW sea level currently.

Re:$385!?

But I bet it is easier to get these to people after the fact that to get them as much water as it can produce.

Re:$385!?

Are they rated for 20 nanometers, or 0.2 microns? Because they aren't the same. 1 micron is 1000 nanometers.

While this distinction seem important, it really isn't. Most people who are getting sick from bad water, is not getting sick from viruses. Most people getting sick from water aren't even getting sick from bacteria, they get sick from parasites. Furthermore, bacteria and viruses aren't usually swimming alone in the water. Usually they cling to each other, or to other particles, forming what is known as "biofilms". Thus, even a filter with larger pores will filter out most of the harmful organisms, even if the pores are much larger then the organisms you look out for.

A water filter that has smaller pores need more time (or pumping force) to filter the same amount of water. There is no silver bullet. Your filter is either good, or fast. You can't have both.

And saying your filter is "good for 4000 liter" is completely useless. Does it mean 4000 liters of already-clean tap-water, 4000 liter of somewhat unsafe water, or 4000 liter of disgusting feces? Does it mean that after 4000 liter the filter is completely clogged, or does it mean that after 4000 liter the filter is only half as effective in letting water through as when it was new? Besides, what maintenance does the filter need in order to be useful for 4000 liter? Can additional maintenance prolong the life even further?

But there's more. Chemical treatment (e.g. iodine) kills small organisms (e.g. viruses) fast, but takes a long time to kill the larger parasites. So by combining a large-pored (i.e. fast, cheap) filter with chemical treatment (2-5 drops of bleach per liter, or iodine pills if you don't like to taste bleach), you get the best of both worlds: fast and safe.

Re:$385!?

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.

Easier to hand out one bottle per person than one gallon of water per person per day. You also fail to note that there were mile-long lines at the pumps, and flights and buses were full. This is in part due to infrastructure, part due to the realities of evacuating a large city, and partly because the evacuation order was given ridiculously late.

Pretty much, but not quite...

tylernt said:

Not to mention the fact that hikers and backpackers have used $60 filter bottles for years now that do pretty much the same thing.

Based on the summary, not quite the same thing. I have a Katadyn Pocket filter [katadyn.com] which is generally regarded as one of the BEST consumer water filter systems (I've been told that it is basically a scaled down version of what the UN uses for refugee missions). It is rugged, not too heavy (though much lighter ones exists), pumps about 1 liter per minute, and a single filter cartridge is good for 50,000 liters.

HOWEVER, it can only filter particles down to 200nm, which is good enough to get just about all bacteria and some viruses. But, this new one filters down to 15nm which covers just about everything. Slap a charcoal filter on it to absorb toxins, and it sounds like a hell of a water system.

Still, you can have my Pocket filter when you pry it from my cold, dead, dysenteric fingers. ;)

Re:Pretty much, but not quite...

Of course, with such a fine porosity, I wonder how well the filter actually works in practice. Having had a lot of experience doing field maintenance on an MSR filter (I've hiked roughly 4000 miles with this one so far), I can say that even around 200nm, the filter needs regular cleaning. Cleaning becomes harder and is required more regularly as your filter gets finer (often referred to as the "tightness" of the filter).

My BuonVino wine filter, which I once [idiotically] ran beer through, clogged in a matter of seconds, thus drenching me and my kitchen in about a quart of beer before I could turn it off. See, wine yeast tends to be highly flocculant-- it clumps together and drops out-- which means that there isn't a whole lot of filtering to be done to make it "bright". Beer, on the other hand, contains yeast of a lower flocculence, and so my filter clogged immediately. And filters that fine can't be reused-- you have to throw them away. This is why big beer manufacturers (like Budweiser) tend to invest a far amount of money in making sure that they have a lot of filter material available (they often use diatomaceous earth [wikipedia.org]).

Re:$385!?

They're called water purification plants, and a centralized solution isn't so great for dealing with massive infrastructure failure.

The myth of safe water from lakes and rivers

...or live in a country where you can actually just drink the water from lakes and rivers.

There is no such country, and there never was. That the pastoral stories you read never mentioned water-born parasites and illnesses (except for the one Slavic fable, where a boy turns into a goat after drinking from a puddle agaisnt his older sister's cautioning), does not mean it never happened.

It is not so much due to the much maligned modern pollution, it is due to the many organisms, whose existence predates man's. Stomach worms are just one — and fairly benign — example.

And if must drink such unfiltered and unboiled water, don't drink from a lake or other standing water. Try to find the fastest running stream you can — you'll have a better chance...

It even purifies fecal matter?

No shit!

Obligatory

Is there one for Windows?

LifeStraw

More than one year ago, BBC mentioned the LifeStraw [bbc.co.uk] that filters water as you drink. It's able to filter 700 litres of water and was at that time priced at less than two quid (probably the wholesale price). See also the inventor Torben Vestergaard Frandsen's website [lifestraw.com].

4000 liters for $385? Not outrageous!

This makes economic sense under some conditions: Instead of cases of bottled water, you have one bottle and filter as needed.

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.

real or just an ad?

It's been possible to buy similar "virus level" filters for hiking since at least the 80s. The typical problems are cleaning, and clogging. See Katadyn or your local REI for a variety of samples. Then there's the "$2" (really about $7) LifeStraw, that was advertised on gizmodo 2 years ago... is this just a running theme?

If the filter is small enough to block viruses, then it is so small that even very small 1u particles will clog it. The whole filter system has to be optimized... and they still clog. They claim 1000 liters, but I'm not really buying it. If it really has something to do with distilling, then I'd be more positive, but that's usually pretty darn complex.

Perhaps he's using a teflon reverse osmosis filter? At the price, it's certainly possible. Those take significant pressure, but they would take out viruses. The water has to start pretty clean too or they develop a film which clogs them too. People have tried iodine on them as well... it works for a while. Whithout knowing what this thing is (and the website's no help), I don't think we can really talk coherently about it.

If it is just a filter you can reverse flush and clean and do a variety of other things, but if your filter clogs after a few liters you'll be _very_ unhappy. This is made more difficult by the fact that you're trying to clean out biologicals, which will happily grow in the filter so it clogs up even quicker, and the cleaning is even more important and difficult to do completely. That's why people make throw aways or just add a halogen (chlorene/iodine) to a tub of relatively filtered water (so things can diffuse) and wait an hour.

Most hikers (who bother) use a more coarse filter (for bacteria only). Often these are treated with iodine as well, and perhaps charcoal to remove bad tastes. These keep clogging problems down, and make cleaning somewhat more easy. That's what the LifeStraw is based on.

I hope this is really an advancement, but it has the smell of an ad.

Yes, but...

Does it remove Dihydrogen Monoxide [dhmo.org] from the water?

From the website

From the lifesaver systems [lifesaversystems.com] "unique features" page:

LIFESAVER bottle is fitted with a chew-proof non-tasting replaceable teat.

Finally. I hate when my teat gets all chewed up. It's also pretty creepy that my previous teat can taste me whenever I use it.

Is it safe?

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.

Doesn't add up.

I am a hiker, I use an MSR pump filter.

The MSR pump allows you to exert a fair bit of force and you will get tired pumping a single liter.
The MSR has a coarser (more open filter).
The MSR will start to clog withing tens of liters of what looks like fairly clean water. You then need to clean the filter.

The MSR is actually one of the better filters on the market.

Now how can a filter that is supposedly much tighter, be easier to pump (squeeze bottle) and last for thousands of liters of brackish water with no cleaning requirements mentioned.

I also noticed no technical info when I clicked it on the web page.

Personally I would stay far away until there was independent lab reviews and field testing, because this really doesn't add up.

Re:O rly?

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.

Re:Pee

<Tyler Durden>
Urine is sterile. You can drink it.
</Tyler Durden>

I know this, because Tyler knows this.

Re:Pee

I'm not sure you understand the purpose of peeing.

Re:Pee

This actually takes quite a while; for most people, urine is upwards of 98% water. Sure, if you drink nothing but urine for months you may develop problems -- but if you're stuck somewhere and water is in short supply, you should definitely drink your urine. It only takes the average human 3 or 4 days to die of thirst, and if you don't know when help will arrive, don't risk it.

Re:Pee

I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, you should start drinking your own urine, so you get used to the taste, just in case the water suddenly runs out. I know I have!

Re:Pee

aww man why did you have to post as an AC? I wanna be your friend!

Re:Pee

You'll develop problems much faster than that if you drink your own urine.

98% sounds much, but it isn't. It means that the salinity can be up to 2% - not far from sea water. If you drink it, it will make you dry out faster than not drinking at all. See, that's how the (healthy) kidneys work: the stuff you pee out can never have a lower salinity than the rest of your body.

drinking pee is harder than you think

Drinking pee is harder than you think. I speak from personal experience.

I was lost in the Ozark mountains for 2 days without any supplies. The temperature was over 100F and I had almost no water. The little water I did have was exhausted quickly and the next best alternative was my own pee. I became thirsty enough that drinking my own pee was not even a question - it was a necessity (or so I thought).

I removed my flashlight batteries and peed in my flashlight because it was the only thing I had that could hold liquid.

Guess what happens to your pee when you are dehydrated? It's get much more concentrated. So much so, that I think you'll have a hard time drinking it unless you are, literally, getting close to death. Mine was so strong, I couldn't even stomach the smell much less, drink it. I have never been as thirsty in my life as that day and I have never since, been in a situation as dire as that one. Yet, I couldn't drink it.

While it may be an option early on, as dehydration starts setting in, drinking your own pee becomes less of an option as each hour passes by.

Re:drinking pee is harder than you think

Having a father who was a POW in Vietnam, a survivalist, and a firm believer in everything that came out of Soldier of Fortune, I've learned a few things.

Sure, I learned to build shelters and fires. And I learned how to set deadfalls and snares, improvise weapons to hunt or ways to fish, places to scavenge for insects to eat (I'm a vegan, actually - but I'll be damned if I'm going to deny myself a meal if I'm starving), and all of the other survival techniques.

One of the other things I learned is that as long as you're healthy, fresh urine is sterile and can be used to clean wounds in the field if no source of potable water is available. And if you're in a position where you think there's a chance you'll be going more than a few days without finding water, it's best to start drinking your urine early - before you're dehydrated and it becomes so concentrated it's unbearable. Even if you have water available, if you're well hydrated drinking your urine will help prolong your supply. In the process it also helps replenish electrolytes that you may not be getting if you're struggling to find food (speaking as someone who's experienced it, hyponatremia [wikipedia.org] is really not fun.)

Re:drinking pee is harder than you think

As an aside, carrying condoms in your wallet is generally a bad idea if you plan on using them for their intended goal - but since this is /. after all, I doubt anyone here has much of a use for one. An unlubricated condom in your wallet is a great way to collect urine, or transport water back to your fire. For anyone who spends time in the wild, a simple unlubricated condom or two in your survival kit is a great, and often overlooked, thing.

Re:drinking pee is harder than you think

I hate to say it, but your father is just plain wrong about drinking urine.

So says the US Army Field Manual [equipped.com]. So says the SAS Survival Handbook (no link, but page 494). So says Dr. William Elfarr [statesman.com], former head of the Texas Urological Society. So says Master Sergeant Gary L. Benton [simplesurvival.net], survival instructor to B-52 crews. So says Tom Brown Jr. [trackertrail.com], survivor school founder and instructor. So says Equipped.com [equipped.com], a survival site. So says Adventure Sports Online [adventures...online.com] in its 5 basic survival tips. And on, and on, and on.

Your body is getting rid of urine for a reason. Urea is toxic, and the saline component of urine means that it dehydrates instead of hydrating.

Re:drinking pee is harder than you think

Survival tip:

Whenever you go hiking or exploring, take a deck of cards with you. If you get hopelessly lost, sit down and start playing solitaire. Within five minutes, someone will be standing over your shoulder, telling you which card to move next.

Re:drinking pee is harder than you think

mod the parent up... i'm peeing myself laughing

Quick! Drink it!!

Re:drinking pee is harder than you think

Did you read my post? It was 100F outside.

What I did not mention was the heat index was 114F and it was during a period of serious drought. All creeks were dried up and there was not a pool of water that I could find. Believe me....it was not my choice. I gladly would have taken ANY water at that point but your assertion that water is plentiful is a bit naive. Even in the Ozarks. Grab a topo map and you'll see. It's not just nice, pretty creeks and lakes back in those hills. There are vast expanses of land between them.

Water is not as easy to find as you think. Especially when you are on foot, tired, and dehydrated. Already, your mind is playing games with you and it feels like each step is your last. Of course...it is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. :)
(and I do that a lot to myself over this experience)

Re:drinking pee is harder than you think

What I did not mention was the heat index was 114F and it was during a period of serious drought. All creeks were dried up and there was not a pool of water that I could find

you forgot to add "and i *liked* it!" if youre going to be hardcore. sound hardcore ;)

Re:No Shit?!?

It removes all particles larger than 15 nm, but chemical bond lengths are typically 0.2 nm, so this bottle will not filter small molecules such as Urea.

Well, at least we know they're not taking the piss.

Re:No Shit?!?

The LifeStraw filters particles from 125 micron down to minimal 15 micron [lifestraw.com]

The Lifesaver Bottle cuts out everything larger than 15nm. 15nm = .015 microns [google.com]

So yes, this is new news.

Re:Pee

Hey MacGyver is that you!?! This is Pete Thornton. Call into home base will ya buddy... it's been a while.

Re:What about LifeStraw?

And on that subject, jackasses like this [bbc.co.uk] are why it's hard to help anyone:

However, a spokesman for UK charity WaterAid, which works to supply clean water and sanitation in 17 of the world's poorest countries, condemned the device as overly expensive, and said it was not a real solution.

The organisation's Paul Hetherington said that while he thought the LifeStraw is an 'amazing-sounding idea,' he did not ultimately think it would help.

"$3.50 sounds like very little to you and me - but most people in those countries earn less than one dollar a day, with which they have to feed their families," he said.

He added that he felt the problem is that many people live very far away from their water, often walking a total of 20km or more carrying a weight of 25 kilos.

"That's what takes it out of them - the long journey," he explained.

"The LifeStraw isn't going to prevent that long journey, even if it does improve the water they drink.

"They're not going to have the education, because they're not going to have the time. It's girls in particular who suffer, because it's women and girls who have to collect the water.

"It only costs a charity like WaterAid £15 per person to provide them with water, sanitation and hygiene education, which, provided there is decent water resource management in the country, will last them a lifetime.

"At that rate, $3.50 is expensive."

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.

Cheap Water Filtration

You need 2 buckets, a cotton t-shirt, propane camp stove ( or a heat source to boil water of some kind ) and bleach.

Cover the mouth of the empty bucket with the cotton t-shit.

Fill the other bucket with suspect water.

Pour the water from the full bucket into the empty bucket through the t-shirt. This filters out the larger baddies.

Presuming at least one of the buckets is metal, you can boil water in that. If not, a pot of some sort is required. The idea is to boil the water to a rolling boil for at least one minute.

Allow the water to cool for at least 30 minutes. Once cool, add 16 drops of bleach per gallon ( or 8 drops per 2 liter bottle ). If the water smells faintly of chlorine, it's safe to drink. If not, repeat adding the bleach.

Thanks to the Red Cross [redcross.org] for directions.

A $400 water filtration system is nice, and can be cost effective in some cases ( as others pointed out, shipping and distributing small empty bottles is easier that shipping and distributing water ), but not having one doesn't mean you have no options.

Re:Cheap Water Filtration

Well, shouldn't most of the microorganisms be killed by the boil itself? Granted, the boil doesn't filter chemicals, but if you're simply trying to kill giardia, e. coli and cryptosporidium, you probably only need to bring the water to a boil and that's it.
http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/how-long-do-you-need-to-boil-water/ [survivaltopics.com]
If you disagree, I would like to know more about which points the URL above got wrong -- I'm always open to learning.

Re:Nothing new here

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.