Black Berkey

Can you post the link here? If I can read up on them, I may be able to reverse engineer them based upon what they say, or at least come up with something that can fulfill a similar function. They could be using silver impregnated ceramics, since ceramic filters can be extremely fine, while silver has excellent germicidal properties.

http://www.berkeyfilters.com/berkeytech.htm

Here is about all I have found. The other links are about the same.

Incredibly the purification elements removed 100% of the pathogens.

To prove this, they would have to put nutrient media in the filtrate and allow any organism present to incubate. Then they would have to count organisms under a microscope. I would question how they KNOW this. What are the test methods they have done to prove this?

This sentence also has me concerned:

Absolutely no pathogens were found in the effluent or were able to be detected, even under an electron microscope.

Did they use a clean room for testing? Just breathing on or near the filtrate could introduce all kinds of pathogens.

If there are pathogens present, would it take an electron microscope to detect them? I guess maybe if they were viruses. Even so, using the "electron microscope" scientific buzz word makes me very skeptical. If there were say 10 ppm pathogen conc., how much of the media would you have to scan to find just one?

My stance on this is that they are overstating their product's performance.

Assuming that it's not all bunkum, the performance suggests a combination of ultrafiltration or even reverse osmosis, activated carbon & activated aluminum. Since it's portable, it's highly unlikely to be RO, which requires the use of high pressure pumps.

They are very similar to the gravity type silver impregnated filters. Here they are at about 10" long. These are gravity fed themselves.

That's possible. Silver has powerful germicidal properties, but then again, UF can also remove viruses through simple filtration, and it can operate purely by gravity flow, so both possibilities cannot be ruled out.

Read the fine print- good for 3000 gallons only. At $100 a pop, I would hope to get more production out of something like this. Not good for whole-house filtering (typical water consumption for a US household is 75 gallons per day per person). Two people at home would give you about 20 days for your $100. Of course, if you are only filtering the drinking water and you have some serious issues with your water supply (i.e., septic tank within 50 feet of your well), then maybe it would be worth it...

Hi,

what about one of the water disinfection pumps that are dosing chlorine-dioxide or ozone into the bad water?

Look at Prominent, they have a full scale program to do this.

Be cautious with recontamination as the water will still contain the fragments of bacteria, mycoplasms and viruses. Thus it will be much faster in growing new populations then pure water. Only prolonged ozone treatment will really cold-burn (oxidise) the fragments.

RHABE

These are good comments. I have taken all of these things into consideration. These filters will be used in a geographical area that is next to being a desert. The people are drinking from polluted canals, move around all the time and have no electricity. So the plan is to use a good floccing material for small 10 L batches to remove most of the suspended particulate, then use the Black Berkey to filter. "Like no other gravity filter available, the Berkey^® water filters remove 100% of all pathogens, trihalomethanes, radiologicals and inorganic minerals." This is a big claim so I will put them to the test. Actually 6000 gallons for a set of filters is not bad when you use the water for drinking. Requiring no electricity is a big plus.

Yes I have read everything several times.

Very fine ceramic filters were developed in England in 19th century and cleaned up the cholera at the time. These filters are common in many applications in NA with companies such as Rain Fresh etc. I believe Royal Dalton was the ceramic filter company. As noted silver is excellent for anti bacterial function. Reverse Osmosis removes just about everything but turns the water acid and with out minerals so you need to add a mineral filter and possibly a water Ionizer to keep the PH in the Alkaline healthy range. Of course activated charcoal filters are excellent in removing chemicals and heavy metals. It boils down to the fact that we have poisoned our water with heavy metals, hormones,chemicals,resistant bacteria etc. to the point that it will be difficult to overcome the problems.

I'm coming into this thread rather late. Found it by searching CR4 before posting my question.

I am a power system designer. As such I am not familiar with desalination or sanitation sewage equipment in any great detail. I have been asked to put forth a proposal for a off grid system for a multi dwelling development located in the desert. The whole project is large enough to warrant using prepackaged desalination equipment and a pre packaged sewage treatment system except for the settling tanks which would be built on location.

The problem I have encountered is finding out what size of prepackaged equipment would be suitable. Not too large and not too small.

This mini community would need desalinated water for lawn irrigation, possibly water for decorative fountains and water for laundry washing and flushing toilets. This thread has highlighted the need for a tertiary water treatment for drinking water in addition to the above. Since this is a desert location but near the ocean I don't know if 'swamp coolers' would be effective for cooling the building interior.

The power requirement is what I am really after hence the need to know the approximate power consumption of the equipment. I do not know yet if such equipment has large variations among the various brands and designs.

The first question is can anyone recommend a company that provides this kind of packaged equipment. Second question; what size / quantity of water flow should I be looking for? I can multiply 75 gallons per person but I am not sure about the other uses.