Talk:Portable water purification

Suggested merge
Suggest that this all be integrated into Portable water purification and this made a re-direct. Velela 09:41, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * By "this all," I think you mean Potability of backcountry water. The two pages are related, but I can imagine two separate topic areas.  This article can discuss ways to purify the water, while the other article can describe what the important pathogens and pollutants are, where they occur, etc. --Smack (talk) 21:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree, keeping these topics separate is important. They may be related, but are different enough that whole articles could be built from each. Notary137 20:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose. As noted above, they are separate topics, but of course should be linked to each other. --Singkong2005 &middot; talk 09:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

No consensus (and majority opposed) after 4 months, so I've taken the liberty of removing the merge tags. --Singkong2005 &middot; talk 09:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Boiling time
According to some sites, you don't actually need to boil water for extra time at higher elevation. The current wikipedia article goes so far as to state that boiling can be ineffective at high enough altitudes, without citation. I couldn't find any reliable sources one way or another. Here's one site that suggests higher-elevation != longer-time:

http://www.ehow.com/how_9060_disinfect-drinking-water.html

Volfy 19:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The issue here is temperature: high temperatures kill microbes. At high elevations where atmospheric pressure is lower, the boiling point of water is also lower (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_point). Whereas down at sea level, pure water boils at 100 degrees Celcius, it boils a few degrees lower up in the mountains.

Boiling the water for longer gives the microbe-killing process longer to work, although of course it also drives off a greater proportion of the water as steam and therefore concentrates dissolved chemicals such as 'limescale' and potentially harmful contaminants.

Given that (a) the boiling point change with altitude is quite small, and (b) longer boiling concentrates dissolved chemicals, it could be argued that the advice is ill advised and merely complicates matters. Boiling water is a safe and easy way to purify water for drinking, without the need for additional chemicals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NoticeBored (talk • contribs) 09:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Question
Hi guys, i've heard that some waterborne diseases are NOT, in fact, killed by boiling. Is this true? Secondly, the way I was 'purifying' my water in New Guinea was to boil it, catch the steam in a cloth, wring the moisture out of the cloth, therefore being left with clean water through steam. Was I just lucky not to end up with some tropical disease, or does this in fact work? 203.49.180.161 05:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

'Catching the steam in a cloth' increases the probability of contaminating your drinking water with microbes from the cloth. Although many microbes on the cloth will be killed immediately by contact with the steam, others may lurk in the folds and fibres of the cloth. Essentially, it is safer and easier to drink the boiled water than the 'caught steam'. NoticeBored (talk) 09:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Prevention of water contamination
Prevention of water contamination is not a portable water purification system but this section is useful for the page, so we could delete the title and put the content in the introduction, that is: "Portable water purification systems are useful for water potabilization but there are some preventions that can avoid water pollution, for example... bury human waste 100 yards... " --150.217.1.26 (talk) 08:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Or instead, don't put it here at all, but put it in the Wilderness acquired diarrhea section on prevention.... 140.139.35.250 (talk) 15:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge with Point of use
These two articles seem to discuss the same subject. They should be merged. Neelix (talk) 17:51, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

OPPOSE ... Point of use systems are, for the most part, installed systems. Portable systems, obviously, are not. POU systems such as reverse osmosis, Britta faucet filters, etc. should be kept separate from systems which are capable of providing safe drinking water in rugged environments/emergency response situations. Though both headings address water purification, merging them would be a disservice to all as point of use and portable systems and methods serve different needs in radically different environments. SurvivorUV (talk) 16:02, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Grass?
What is the function of the grass in the filter? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.185.6.216 (talk) 04:00, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

recent edit about nuclear event use's "...is a myth."
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portable_water_purification&diff=418949030&oldid=417364615

I guess I'd like to see a citation, only because it was a recent edit, and is pertinent to the Japan nuclear disaster. .. and the addition of the '... is a myth' basically turns around a statement in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.79.146.225 (talk) 01:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC) I did a quick search, and think this article conflicts with the '... is a myth' edit. http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/80/1/220 70.79.146.225 (talk) 01:51, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

———————————————————————————————————————

"Point-Of-Use (POU) just describes a type of system. That system does not necessarily have to be water purification- as it seems everyone is stuck on. If researched properly I am confident we could find many different types of "POU" systems. It is a general category that deserves a distinction of its own. Underneath it should be examples like those used in water purification and bacterial mitigation. Likely there exists POU heat applications in which a solution is heated just at point along a piping system. The rest of the piping system has insulation so active heating is not required over every square inch of piping. This is another example of point of use. As a community it is important that we approach our development of global conceptual ideas robustly and enable others to find the analogies between global concepts and their problems at hand. This is how global concepts aids others in problem solving. 24.60.230.219 (talk) 18:30, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Removal of section or citation
I suggest that the citation [17] is not used.

The citation leads to an experiment abstract in which the bacteria Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 is able to undergo photoreactivation and continue reproducing with a second dose of UVC, UVB, and solar light. Within the same abstract the author notes that e.coli is unable to do this. This citation is used to in the Ultraviolet Purification section to suggest that multiple pathogens could undergo photoreactivation while the abstract does not back this claim.

Further research shows that Shewanella oneidensis is not a common bacteria in that it is able to metabolize heavy metals which would neuter other bacteria in the same manor (radical formation) that UV light would. (Source http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/1/63)

This indicates that Shewanella oneidensis is much less prone to UV "neutering" and suggests that photoreactivation among Shewanella oneidensis could be much more of a concern than in other pathogens that could be ingested in a wilderness setting.

So I suggest that either the following statement be removed or re-written, or that a new citation be found.

"In the event that such UV-treated water containing neutered microbes is exposed to visible light (specifically, wavelengths of light over 330-500 nm) for any significant period of time, a process known as photo reactivation can take place, where the possibility for repairing the damage in the bacteria's reproduction DNA arises, potentially rendering them once more capable of reproducing and causing disease.[17] UV-treated water must therefore not be exposed to visible light for any significant period of time after UV treatment, before consumption, to avoid ingesting reactivated and dangerous microbes."

101.109.241.31 (talk) 05:48, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Ozone
Some mention of ozone, plus a link to ozone, should be made under the "chemical disinfection" section should be made. IceHorse (talk) 17:00, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Is ozone used by any portable devices? 172.12.225.38 (talk) 21:53, 31 August 2013 (UTC) MIOX based devices at one point claimed ozone as one of their active constituents, and are notable for being used by (and development thereof likely funded by) the US military.203.111.191.138 (talk) 04:49, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Halazone section
I've removed this chemical name from the halazone section: (4-(dichlorosulfamoyl)benzoic acid; 4-carboxy-N,N-dichlorobenzenesulfonamide; HOOC−C6H4−SO2−NCl2). Reason is that I don't think it helps the understanding of the layperson. Also we have no way of checking (no reference given). Maybe halazone should have its own Wikipedia article if it's important? EMsmile (talk) 19:59, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Merging three identical links?
Not sure how to do it. I added a link and then saw there are two more under references. https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/travel/backcountry_water_treatment.html PragmaticRealist (talk) 01:15, 19 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Done.  Velella  Velella Talk 06:41, 19 March 2018 (UTC)