REAL LIFE NEWS: THE DRINKABLE BOOK
by Hazed
You’ve heard of having a thirst for knowledge. You’ve also heard of peole drinking in the knowledge in a book. But now there’s a book which actually produces drinking water.
The “drinkable book” has pages which can be torn out to filter drinking water. The treated paper, coated with nanoparticles of silver or copper, are printed with instructions on how to use them. In trials at 25 contaminated water sources in South Africa, Ghana and Bangladesh, the filters were successful in removing more than 99% of bacteria, reducing levels of contamination to that found in US tap water. It even managed to produce drinkable water where raw sewage had been dumped into a stream.
The technology was developed by Dr Teri Dankovich, a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. She spent several years working and testing the special paper. She developed it with communities in developing countries, who do not have access to clean drinking water – there are 663 million people around the world without it.
“All you need to do is tear out a paper, put it in a simple filter holder and pour water into it from rivers, streams, wells etc and out comes clean water – and dead bacteria as well,” she explained.
Her tests show that one page can clean up to 100 litres of water, meaning that a book could filter four years’ worth of water for one person.
At the moment the paper is made by hand by Dr Dankovitch and her students, so the next stage is to increase production and then conduct trials in which local residents use the filters themselves.
If these trials pan out and the technology can be mass produced it could go a long way to solving the massive problem of lack of clean drinking water.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33954763
