Posted on 01/07/2005 4:15:31 PM PST by nickcarraway
They took a bucket of muddy, bacteria-laden water. Added a bit of white powder. Stirred.
And within minutes, standing amid 100 refugees in war-torn Liberia, researchers from Johns Hopkins University had produced what seemed like a magic trick:
Clear, drinkable water.
"I couldn't believe it when I saw it," Hopkins researcher Shannon Doocy said of her work last year. "The people in Liberia couldn't believe it."
The powder, developed by Procter & Gamble Co. with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is now headed for its biggest test yet: the tsunami zone.
Relief agencies, led by AmeriCares of Stamford, Conn., are sending over at least 15 million packets of the stuff - enough to purify 40 million gallons of water. Health officials yesterday said the lack of potable water represented a grave threat to survivors. Water and sewer plants have shut down, and pipes are ruptured, leading some victims to drink sewage water.
Relief workers have been treating water for decades with chlorine bleach, which kills most germs but does not improve the water's appearance.
The new powder, called PUR, contains chlorine but has other ingredients that give it two key advantages. PUR gets rid of toxic "heavy metals," such as arsenic and mercury, and it makes muddy water look clean - a key to winning acceptance from those who may be leery of aid from outsiders.
"People need to believe that they're drinking water that's purified," said Jeff Albert, an environmental scientist at Brown University who is helping raise money for AmeriCares.
The added ingredients - primarily iron sulfate and clay - cause particles in the water to clump together and settle to the bottom, so they can be strained out through cloth. The process, known as flocculation, is used in many municipal water-treatment plants, including Philadelphia's, but the powder has not previously been made in small packets for widespread public use.
PUR has other advantages. Unlike boiling water, it does not require energy on site. And it is much lighter and easier to transport than fresh water.
It costs Procter & Gamble about 8 cents to make each packet, or "sachet," of powder, said Gregory S. Allgood, director of safe drinking water for the Cincinnati-based corporation. The company has donated most of the sachets, which are about the size of a ketchup packet.
About one-third were sold for a nominal fee - 3.5 cents per packet - as a signal to relief workers that it has some value, to encourage that it be used correctly and responsibly, Allgood said.
For now, the supply is limited. The amount being shipped to Sri Lanka and other tsunami-ravaged nations represents the company's entire global inventory.
P&G formerly made the powder in the Philippines, through a contractor, and has switched to its own plant in Karachi, Pakistan, where it is ramping up production.
In addition to providing the product to nonprofit groups, the company tried in the past to sell the powder for profit. That effort had limited success, but P&G will continue to manufacture the product for humanitarian use, Allgood said.
The PUR brand also is used for the company's home water-treatment filters, which use a different technology involving carbon.
The powder packets, besides being used in emergencies, are gaining favor as a long-term solution in countries where clean water is unavailable. Population Services International, a Washington-based nonprofit, recently has used PUR in Uganda and Kenya, vice president Sally Cowal said.
Worldwide, the number-one goal for PUR and other treatments is to prevent diarrhea, which is believed to kill 5,000 children every day.
The product is not a panacea. It will not purify raw or undiluted sewage.
But the powder has proven its worth. Last year in Liberia, the Johns Hopkins researchers found that people using PUR were one-eighth as likely to contract diarrhea as those drinking untreated water. Children under 5 were one-twelfth as likely to get the disease if they drank treated water, said Doocy, who works at the university's Bloomberg School of Public Health.
As for the Indian Ocean disaster, P&G suffered its own loss. Its country manager in Thailand, Orapim Milindasuta, was killed in the tsunami.
I wonder if it contains alum?
Oxiclean?
Flocculating agents can seem miraculous to the unfamiliar.
Clorox?
Hope it really works, and can help.
Can anyone else confirm that?
You could make some killer consume with this stuff.
There goes another evil corporation trying to exploit people again.
There goes another evil corporation trying to exploit people again.
I'm in my 70's. I remember when we first got TV
back in the 40's the wife wouldn't pass in front of the
console until I closed the doors over the screen. It
took months for her to realize that Jack Paar and others could not see her in her undies.
Over the decades my generation has witnessed so many
scientific marvels we've lost count. But this one by
P&G has to stand up there with the Biggies. Just a
little packet in the First Aid kit, the glove compt.
or with your camping gear could be a life saver in
an unexpected crisis. Hey! I still keep canned veggies
and gallons of distilled water in my basement storage room.
If they're going to have that going on shouldn't they include condoms with the packets of powder? Wine connoisseurs should be able to decant the container without using a cloth strainer.
Oh we evil American corporate profiteers, will our evil never cease!
and further all submarines have "scrubbers" that can recycle the air they breath.
I wonder if this will be another one of those magnificent inventions that in ten years time will be proven to cause some other horrific disease in anyone who ever handled it?
it is just that the conditions, such as sea state and precipitation, in the affected area are are not conducive to effective utilization of the product.
Naw its simply DDT ;-)
Not likely when you look at a map of the middle east. Most of that region of the world is sand, sand and more sand........
Such plants are more than likely for personal consumption or the exporting to the other sandy regions.
OTOH, maybe they're thinking about creating freshwater lakes in order to boost their bass fishing tourism........ :)
LOL!
(that crap did nothing for my laundry except add more powdery lumps)
I bet you even remember those water-filled magnifiers we used to hang in front of the early TV tubes to make the picture look bigger... '-)
Water is necessary for life, fortunately it is the most abundant renewable resource on earth.
Evaporator tanks and collect the condensation. The water will be clean but not necessarily sterile. A bottle of bleach will deal with the rest.
The sediment in the evaporator vats can be gleaned for real money. Will contain a huge variety of minerals including gold and silver.
Don't know when it'll come to TV but there are plenty of web sites available where people display their home activities to viewers for a membership fee. You don't have to look very hard to find them if they haven't already solicited your business. I would be curious enough to look for free but I'm too much of a cheapskate to pay for something like that.
thanks for posting...this got good mention on The Paul Harvey News and Comment today
High-output de-salination processes -- whether distillation or reverse osmosis -- are, indeed, inherently expensive and/or energy-intensive.
I sincerely hope so and I am thinking about cranking up a group of folks for the OWEC and am thinking of charging about $50 a barrell.
Only fair that the Saudi's and other oil producers share in "what's good for the goose, is good for the gander".
It is THAT expensive. The sailors must have water to live, that is why that have the distillers. Sea water must be boiled using fuel.
LOL! That's what I was thinking!
Israel is in the forefront when it comes to desalinization plants.
More likely something like calcium hypochlorite.
The aquifers here in the U.S. are already dropping a lot.
I was an Operations Specialist (radar, navigation, communication) so I was not very familiar with the goings on down below.
But that is neither here nor there, my point was...
producing the water is or can be done relatively cheaply... it is the fact that they can only be effective fairly close to a large body of salt water and the subsequent distribution of the potable water produced would be the most expensive component of the equation.
Actually, the Saudi's use most of the desalinated water to create steam for an injection process to help facilitate the extraction of oil.
Not a problem. Most are nuke powered.
Yes very expensive but Saudies have ton of cash...
its all over the place
But are great for cleaning a pool after a storm!
Can anyone else confirm that?
Desalination is expensive; the cheapest way is through reverse osmosis. The cost comes from the energy required to pump the water through the RO membranes. However, recent years have seen dramtic improvement in RO systems with improving salt reject ratios (a good thing) and lower pressure requirements. But still needing pressures in the neighborhood of 200 - 250 PSIG is still very expensive when you are talking of the quantity of fresh water a city or town goes through. But its a lot better than the 600 - 800 PSIG needed only ten years ago or so.
They also have a ready source of waste heat to evaporate the water then recondense it after it has left the brine. Further, they don't care about efficiency beause they can recover small amounts of seawater and dump the rest. Great process, if you have a handy supply of waste heat nearby.
LOL! I want to see that!
No... no, you don't.
/c;
I believe you meant to type genetically engineered...but your version sounds a lot more..uhh..interesting...;-)
"genitally" engineered bacteria which eats and digest oil.
Uh, I think the word you want there is genetically.
By taking these minerals and refining them, you should arrive at a net profit from your desalination process. But they won't tell you that slight detail. (If this weren't true, no one would bother with the process.) Removal of gold salts is not that difficult - especially from RO filtration equipment. I've often wondered what municipal water companies do with their filters when they change them, and where the resulting profits go.
Read the article, and/or do a Google search.
This "stuff" has been on the market for years.
We have friends in Charlotte, NC who had a severe Ca H2O problem. They employed the PUR system, and now, their water is clean, crisp, and Ca free. BTW, PUR also addresses other H2O borne chemicals...
That is an accepted means of decontaminating land areas of oil spills.
Even though every crude oil has it's own bacteria which nature provides for long term eradication of the oil, if some genetically engineered bacteria is introduced the process is speeded up considerably.
The critical factors for reproduction of the bacteria and eventual clean up of the spill are plentiful oxygen and warm temperature.
Uh, I think the word you want there is genetically. >>
Uh, who gives a crap, you and everyone else knew what I meant. It's called a typo.
What a great invention, and P&G is doing a wonderful thing.
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