A "drinkable book" could help fight the global problem of bacterial contamination in drinking water that claims millions of lives every year.
Researcher Theresa Dankovich has developed an inexpensive and transportable nanotechnology-based method to purify drinking water, the American Chemical Society reported. Each page of The Drinkable BookTM contains metal nanoparticles that can eliminate harmful bacteria.
Dankovich discovered that sheets of thick filter paper embedded with silver nanoparticles could kill a variety of bacteria and viruses. She then created a similar device using less expensive copper, and used it to purify water in Limpopo, South Africa, as well as northern Ghana, Haiti and Kenya.
"In Africa, we wanted to see if the filters would work on 'real water,' not water purposely contaminated in the lab," Dankovich said. "One day, while we were filtering lightly contaminated water from an irrigation canal, nearby workers directed us to a ditch next to an elementary school, where raw sewage had been dumped. We found millions of bacteria; it was a challenging sample."
The researchers observed even this highly contaminated water achieved 99.9 percent purity with the silver- and copper-nanoparticle paper, which is comparable to drinking water in the United States.
"Some silver and copper will leach from the nanoparticle-coated paper, but the amount lost into the water is within minimal values and well below Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization drinking water limits for metals," Dankovich said.
The unique product consists of pages embedded with silver nanoparticles. Each page is printed with information on water safety both in English and the language spoken in whatever region it applies to. The pages can be removed and inserted into a holding device that allows water to be poured through the filter. A single page has the ability to clean up to 26 gallons of water, which is equivalent of about four years-worth of clean drinking water for one individual.
Researchers are now working to move this technology past the field test phase and prepare it for commercial production and distribution to rural communities.
"We have a bunch of designs, and we are trying to trim them down and keep them simple. Worldwide, many people use a 5-gallon bucket for many needs, so we are basing our approach on that type of container," Dankovich said. "Along with applications, our biggest current focus is to scale up, going from a lab bench experiment to a manufactured product. We have to go from 'cool chemistry' to something everyone can understand and use."
The findings will be presented at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
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