A Sharp Solution to Water Treatment

I would say clean water is a luxury in all parts of the world. It's just that many of us have taken it for granted.

Start with Bear Gryll's rule of 3's: You can live 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food. Obviously none of these are "luxeries". All are absolutely essential for human survival. The only entities that have taken it for granted is big industry and greedy politicians who allow big industry to abuse these precious commodities. When the US gets big money out of our political system - then the world's (not just the US') problems can finally be solved.

Your whole world view is this: pure horse hockey and applesauce! You can't even spell luxury, much less describe it. You are wasting our precious air, do us all a favor and get a new brain.

Actually, without big industry, and good government policies (and officials) in place, there would be no public water supply, much less a food supply. Without big industry, there would be no controls for air pollution from you pot-headed troglodytes running around grunting at your camp fires, and poking each other in the eyes with sharp sticks.

Grow up, stop whining, get a job! The 3 major problems in the world right now: (1)left wing socialists, (2)even further left wing socialists, and (3) you guessed it, outer space left wing Kool-Aid drinking communists.

James Stewart, I would agree with the worldview points and the value of industry, large and small, and the value of government, if there are operating on good principles. Innovation and experimentation often come out of the R and D of companies, sometimes funded by governments.

As far as how you communicated that, I'm not so sure about that. Maybe read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. As I tell my son, "you may have a great idea but if you don't commuicate it well, or alienate people, you won't get to see your great idea implemented.

This is similar to the filters that the Rotary Club is distributing for free to various remote communities except they use an all concrete design produced locally and don't use of the rusty nails.

My question to the Chemists is:

Would the nails (or other locally available metal) be useful in removing other contaminants such as mercury or lead?

Figuring out a few simple "addition" to the basic biological sand filter would help a lot of people affected by polluted water sources.

maybe on lead removal, somewhat doubtful, but it depends on alkalinity being in the water, and probably on the small availability of some sulfate being present in the water.

Lead sulfate is highly insoluble, and that is what usually stops people from poisoning themselves with lead when they combine any "potable" water supply with lead pipes.

The Romans (in Rome) learned this lesson the hard way, since their water source was in fact actually highly pure (channeled by Aqueduct from the Alps), but then they used lead pipes. Some say this may have led at least partially to the down fall of Rome.

Mercury does not behave the same way as arsenic or lead, with one exception: when any heavy metal is present at trace (but perhaps still chronically toxic) concentration, one of the best ways to reduce the concentration to tolerable levels (survivable, not chronic effects) is to use charcoal filtration. Activated charcoal usually contains alkaline earth metal ions (Calcium and/or Magnesium) that can exchange with the "heavies" in a very spontaneous manner (good binding of the heavy ions), and can tie up Arsenic depending on the type of arsenic present.

If heavy metals are a serious threat due to downstream piping (as in Flint, Michigan), the solution really should be to increase the hardness and alkalinity of the water (by treatment additions), so as to stabilize any lead pipes, or pipes with metal containing arsenic (such as low grade copper).

If a locality has a water source that is laden with mercury, it might be possible to use something like sulfide to precipitate the mercury (along with some other heavy metals if present), also to improve the efficacy of such treatment by the addition of ions (such as copper (II) ion) that are also insoluble with sulfide. This should enhance co-precipitation of the mercury to lower residuals than simple treatment. It can also be used effectively to remove excess sulfide (which is toxic in its own right). The final water still needs to be free of sulfide and copper, as well as the targeted ions.

Thank you for this instructive contribution.

I will have to figure out how to add a "simple" ozone generator to the filter the Rotarian use. Need something that can be made and maintained locally and from "surplus" electricity from a solar panel used for many applications.

Why not just make a large Van de Graaf generator that is powered by a windmill, and make sparky corona discharge over some hack saw blades above the water? If the wind isn't blowing you could surely find a couple of Mexicans around with nothing to do to peddle the wheel.