The Drinkable Book Filters Water For Drinking

It can be very hard to get drinkable water in some parts of the world where utility systems are non-existent or unreliable. For many people in rural parts of the world getting water to drink can be a big undertaking and at times clean water is simply not available. A researcher named Theresa Dankovich has discovered a cheap and easy to transport method to purify drinking water.

The process the researcher discovered is a paper filter with each page impregnated by bacteria killing metal nanoparticles. The paper is placed into a book called The Drinkable Book. Dankovich plans to explain her tech and provides results of field tests conducted in Africa and Bangladesh at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

The metal particles placed into the paper in The Drinkable Book are silver. Those particles are able to eliminate a wide variety of microorganisms including bacteria and some viruses. In testing water from a drainage ditch where raw sewage had been dumped was used and the filter paper was able to achieve 99.9% purity of the water.

Dankovich says that some silver and copper will leach from the filter paper into the drinking water, but the amount lost is minimal. In fact, the metals that leech into the drinking water are below EPA and WHO drinking water standards.

SOURCE: Eurekalert