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Safe Water Theory

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48K views 243 replies 42 participants last post by  Abraham5  
#1 ·
I see lots of folks here talking about what filters, gadgets, and chemicals to use for make drinking water after SHTF or just for wilderness use. The problem I see most often is their focus on the parts instead of the process. When someone suggests some other part or idea many readers get stuck back at zero again unsure how this would affect their planning. But once you understand the process then all your options begin to start making more sense.

Safe Water = Sediment Removal > Biological Remediation > Toxin Removal.

If you understand that process then all you have to do when you see new chemicals, filters, or gadgets is figure how each works and where they fit into the process above. In theory the last two can be switched around but for practical reasons it is better to do toxin removal last as those components tend to have the shortest volume lifespan so the cleaner the water is the longer the toxin filter will last.

The equation explained:

Safe Water is not perfect water. Only labs make perfect water. Instead it means where the risk factors are so low that a moderately healthy or mildly sick person can feel safe drinking it. It need not be crystal clear. It's not sterile, pyrogen free, injectable, triple distilled, or any other term you might see out there. It just means almost everyone can drink it without worry.

Sediment Removal is taking the bulk of the solids out. Solids interfere with the next two processes, making them harder and shortening the lifespan of filter media.

Biological Remediation is removing dangerous lifeforms from the water. There are two levels of this. First is removal of bacteria, cysts, protozoa, algae, and other microflora. The second level is removing viruses. The removal of viruses is only for regions where virus present a realistic threat. Most temperate areas, especially in 1st World nations, have negligible viral water threats. Hot tropical and cold tundra areas do pose special viral risks.

Toxin Removal is dealing with non-living threats in the water. Mycotoxins from the metabolism of living creatures, soluted metals, arsenic, hydrocarbon and other solvent waste, cleaning agents, fungicides, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, acid rain, mining runoff, industrial waste, and post consumer runoff all exist out there. The more industrialized and urban an area is the more likely the risk is. Rural areas are not much safer as farms offer their owns risks. Almost every place is downstream from somewhere and anything upstream or up elevation flows down. Acid rain will fall even at very high and population free areas. Even where no man exits there is risk simply from the earth. Naturally occurring metal deposits and arsenic are found all over. Remember that every man created toxin was once something man grew or pulled out of the earth. Your risk for toxins is lowest in wilderness settings of 3rd World tropical nations.

What are common examples of the 3 safe water making phases that we use?

Sediment Removal: sand, flocculation, spun filters, filter cloths, paper cloths, tight weave wire mesh.

Biological Decon: boiling, chlorine (sodium hypochlorite, calcium hypochlorite, chloride dioxide), ozone, potassium permanganate, Miox, silver, xylem, steripen, alcohol, SODIS, iodine, UV, sub-micron filtration.

Toxin Decon: membranes, activated carbon, activated alumina, tight packed cilantro/parsley, ozone.

Notes: not all of the toxin removal methods will do a complete job; distillation can handle multiple aspects of the equation.

In my next post I will cover those various options for all 3 steps in more detail.
 
#2 ·
Sediment Removal
Sand: Preferably clean boiled sand. Play sand is a good choice. Used inline.
Flocculation: Using an agent to clump or flake the sediment so it floats or sinks to the bottom. Used in batch method.
Spun filters: Artificial fibers spun into a cone or cylinder. Used inline.
Filter cloths: Expedient method using cloth or fabric mesh like pantyhose. Used inline.
Paper cloths: Expedient method using strong paper, like a coffee filter. Used inline.
Tight weave wire or nylon mesh: A stainless steel or nylon weave of around 100 mesh fibers per inch grade. Used inline.

Biological Decon
Boiling: Rolling boil for 1+ minutes at sea level.
Ozone: Typically found at pool stores as a generator.
Potassium permanganate: 2.5mg/liter, but will not kill viruses at safe drinking amounts.
Miox: Currently off market but some still available on Amazon and eBay.
Silver: Usually as part of an existing filter. No official guidelines for colloidal mixtures.
Xylem: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24587134
Alcohol: ethanol only. Difficult as you need about 20% ethanol (40proof), but 3 parts water to 1 part red wine will work due the phenols.
SODIS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection
Iodine: Potable Aqua, Lugol's solution, tincture of iodine 2%.
UV: Steripen, Puritest, UV mercury vapor bulb, Watts, many other brands.
Chlorine: sodium hypochlorite (household bleach), calcium hypochlorite (pool shock), chloride dioxide (tablets).
Sub-micron filtration: .1 micron for everything excepts viruses, .02 micron for viruses.

Toxin Decon
Membranes: Inline reverse osmosis cartridges.
Activated carbon (charcoal): Good for most organic and some inorganic toxins. Not good for arsenic or fluoride.
Activated alumina: Good for arsenic and fluoride.
Ozone: Good for mycotoxins created by algae and fungi.
Tight packed cilantro/parsley: http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/p.../september/cilantro-that-favorite-salsa-ingredient-purifies-drinking-water.html ; http://www.medicaldaily.com/cilantr.../cilantro-filter-researcher-find-plant-has-water-purification-properties-256714 ; http://www.greenprophet.com/2013/09/cilantro-hailed-for-its-water-purification-properties/ ; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130912104814.htm

I won't be covering distillation in this topic. Search the forum as this has been covered many times. Done properly it will cover both biological remediation and toxin removal. It must be done correctly with precision instruments as temps must be held to within just a few degrees. Boiling is not distillation. A tea kettle isn't a distillation rig.

This is a distillation rig.
Image
 
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#39 ·
Justa coupel of corrections

IamZeke said:
Sediment Removal
I won't be covering distillation in this topic. Search the forum as this has been covered many times. Done properly it will cover both biological remediation and toxin removal. It must be done correctly with precision instruments as temps must be held to within just a few degrees. Boiling is not distillation. A tea kettle isn't a distillation rig.
Click to expand...
Actually a tea kettle with a condenser is a distillation. You are confusing fractional distillation with simple distillation.

Simple distillation will remove all sediment, biologicals, all heavy metals, and most radionuclitides (Iodine-131 being a huge and dangerous exception.) It is insanely fuel consuming unless the heat is reused for domestic heating. Commercial scale drinking water distillers run off vapor compression, which increases efficiency 8-10 fold (in fact once operating, they can use the waste heat from the engine for their heat- the engine compresses the vapor so that it can be condensed and the heat used to boil raw water. The hot condensed water is then used to preheat incoming raw water.)

IamZeke said:
Yes, somewhat. The ceramic is supposed to do the entire job against bacteria and cysts. The silver is used as a backup and to make a stab at reducing viruses as well, which a ceramic filter is too porous to catch properly.
Click to expand...
The initial use of silver was to prevent bacteria from growing on the filter. I've never seen any study showing any effect on the water from contact (a small amount can become dissolved in the water.) The silver isn't collodial, BTW, it is dispersed in ceramic, or prehaps disolved in water. There is no reason to assume the bacteria are pathogenic, so there is not a "requirement" for the silver inorder for the filter to work. This problem is usually far worse in charcoal filters.

Any inactivation of viruses (which is usually substantial) is ascribed to mechanical filtering of particles to which the viruses are attached (exposed viral strands are unlikely to survive in outside water.)

I have seen a paper written by a future catholic priest for a graduate microbiology class looking at inactivation of bacteria and virus from contact with Stirling silver (communion chalice). The contact times for inactivation far exceded the flow of water past a few dispersed silver particles.

IamZeke said:
No. Only activated charcoal will work. AC has been treated to greatly increase the surface area.
Click to expand...
While activated charcoal is far more effective- regular BBQ grill charcoal, crushed to a powder, significantly reduces chemical contaminants. Try it for yourself with chlorine (use pool test strips) or iodine (starch indicator). At 10 ppm of either, the water after flowing through 1" of powdered BBQ grill charcoal had no detectable concentration ( with a .1 ppm threshold for chlorine) For a few more bucks you could use a solvent (generically referred to a volatile organic compounds, VOCs) and send it to a lab. Or if you don'e believe lab tests, Whisky is commonly made in chared barrels for the same reason, so so they said at the Jack Daniels distillery.

You can also reactivate charcoal, though the process is somewhat tricky and used dry activated charcoal is a fire hazard. It's done regularly at some water treatment plants, while others buy fresh charcoal.
 
#3 ·
I've been researching bone char quite a bit for fluoride and radioactive particle removal. It looks promising.

Ideally, we would all have access to mountain stream water, but since we don't, having a non-electric water distiller is one of the best preps, imo.

Zeke, I'm curious about why the temp water in distillers should be regulated so carefully. Is this for VOC's? If so, using a carbon filter can resolve this, no?
 
#4 · (Edited)
Bone char could be an interesting alternative to plain activated carbon as a complete finishing media so people could skip needing both AC and alumina. But it is a lot harder to get than AC and very expensive when you find it.

Distilling needs two temps. First is 10 degrees below boiling to remove all chemicals with a boiling point less than water. Then you need exactly boiling so you only remove the water. You don't want it higher than boiling in order to avoid heavier chemicals from entering the clean water. Note that I didn't say the temp because the person needs to compute the precise temp for their altitude.

Yes, you could finish distilling water with AC but then you could do that with just boiled water as well and skip the costly distiller. If you are going to go to the trouble of distillation you might as well get the benefit of not needing what is generally the most expensive and fastest used component of water cleaning, that being the AC.

In any case, I'm trying to skip a lengthy discussion on distillation because it is it's own deep subject that has been talked about many times here at SB already. Better to think of it as a way to bypass the 3 step method of my OP.
 
#5 ·
While a useful device, the simple distillation rig shown above does not include any packing or distillation trays to separate substances like gasoline or heptane from water very well.

without multiple stages of separation, depending upon the relative volatility of the different liquids may only result in a 30-40% or so removal of contaminate liquids per stage. (Which is why industrial distillation may consist of 30 to 120 stages of distillation, depending upon the difficulty of separation. And even then, work arounds are sometimes needed to get past minimum boiling azeotropes, such as are formed with water and ethyl alcohol.)

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-boiling-point-d_936.html

Just a caution that it is of course not a magic device. :)
 
#6 ·
Justme11 said:
While a useful device, the simple distillation rig shown above does not include any packing or distillation trays to separate substances like gasoline or heptane from water very well.

without multiple stages of separation, depending upon the relative volatility of the different liquids may only result in a 30-40% or so removal of contaminatic liquids per stage. (Which is why industrial distillation may consist of 30 to 120 stages of distillation, depending upon the difficulty of separation. And even then, work arounds are sometimes needed to get past minimum boiling azeotropes, such as are formed with water and ethyl alcohol.)

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-boiling-point-d_936.html

Just a caution that it is of course not a magic device. :)
Click to expand...
What you said and my earlier points too is why when folks talk about taping a hunk of copper tubing to a tea kettle and trying to distill on a common kitchen stove just makes me want to scream they are just boiling water for coffee at best.

Stills like the picture above are the very minimum requirement to get a decent grade of product, providing you use it properly. Nor even with that will you get a premium product. You need a fraction tower to do better, such as with the still shown below.

Image



-Ugh- I keep trying to not discuss distillation in this topic because of its vastly more complex nature, compared to what I posted in the OP. Distillation requires its own topic and I know there are a number of old threads here that are devoted to it that can be found via search.
 
#7 ·
Of note for this topic is a new discovery made for another type of toxin decon.

The forum software limits the edit window for regular members and all I can do is link to the topic I am referring to, that uses a common cactus.

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=407066
 
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#8 ·
IamZeke,
Great post with good info, for those of us not as educated in this subject, how does this translate over to the "off the shelf" filtering systems that are on the market?, ie., Berkey, etc. Are they really effective for supplying safe drinking water for my family in the case of an emergency? In my case, I would be filtering primarily swimming pool water.
 
#9 ·
Don't get me started on the voodoo science Berkey tries to peddle. I really mean that. I do not endorse their product line. End of story.

The other urn style counter filters tend to be serviceable enough as long as they use a ceramic candle that includes an activated charcoal core for toxins. Mind you that you are paying a lot extra for a bit of speed and mostly appearance for the kitchen setting.

Instead, you can buy ceramic dome filters and install them in 5 gallon bucket systems so that you have a complete filtration system for 20% of the price of a typical metal urn system. Monolithic is the brand that is the standard in this category. This kind of system runs slower because you only have one dome in the bucket instead of up to 3 candles in an urn system. And a white plastic bucket isn't pretty on the kitchen counter every day.

Either urns or buckets should do perfectly fine with water as easy to deal with as a freshwater pool source. They can handle raw surface water if they have to. You can even extend the longevity of the filter by first letting water removed from a chlorinated pool stand open topped for a day by itself to let excess chlorine escape. Chlorine is captured by the charcoal, but given time it will escape water on its own and not add to the charcoal's adsorption burden.

Ok, I covered the basic urn things you were asking about. With all the permutations on my option lists above I'd be typing for days trying to cover every possible combo. There are lot of good thread links in the pinned water thread to learn more about different options. This thread is mainly to teach you the overall concepts, not the nuts and bolts of everything you can put to use.
 
#17 ·
No. Only activated charcoal will work. AC has been treated to greatly increase the surface area.

A teaspoon of AC has more surface area than a 5 gallon bucket or big bag of normal BBQ or firepit charcoal. A 5 gallon bucket of AC has more surface area than a semi trailer's worth of common charcoal.

AC will be a finite resource after SHTF. You will have to husband it carefully and put aside a fair bit of the expensive stuff.

A 5gal bucket will run you about $100 for the decent quality stuff. It can be somewhat renewed but not easily and not very well.

This scarcity issue is why I mention cilantro and parsley in the OP, and cactus further down.
 
#20 ·
I am a little surprised no one has mentioned water filtration / remediation with natural ZEOLITE.

http://www.ohiopurewater.com/shop/files/ChemSorb.pdf

Image


Retired mining engineer & back in the day did a lot of exploration/acquisition/permitting work on natural zeolite deposits.
 
#22 ·
That process sounds like it will work for sediment and microbes, but it doesn't cover toxins at all.

There is almost nowhere you won't run into toxins, even or especially in rural areas.
 
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#24 ·
Can you explain how to use the charcoal to this newbbee please? Usually when I find info on it, it is so bogged down in with other stuff I know Nothing about that I get lost then frustrated.
And maybe more about those ceramic things. I've never heard if them. (pics if you have them, or a video link, I'm a visual learner).
 
#26 · (Edited)
This could be a long discussion. I'll get back to it when I get home from work. Maybe someone else will jump in earlier.

But you will need to overcome the visual learning thing for this as there aren't a bunch of easy charts and pictures to show you the process. Just showing you the products won't tell you how they work. This is a forum and most of what we do here is in the written form. Most survival methodology and equipment discussions here are in written form. It may take you longer but you will need to take some of this education in via the written word, because everything you need to know is already found here on this site. The more that new folks ask for the same info over and over the more you will just see the response of "search for it". It is assumed by the regulars here that you will take charge of your own education instead of asking about everything.
 
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#31 ·
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#33 ·
it may be possible to make activated carbon as an individual, using a single step 20 minute creation and activation process at 850 deg C in the presence of excess steam. 3% carbon yield.

However, you would need to be competent to make/buy/design and operate a reactor and superheated high pressure steam system, with safety relief valves etc, and do perhaps as a batch process. A couple of engineers with the right backgrounds could pull this off I would think. (Not for a backyard mechanic to try)

http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/167033.pdf
 
#35 ·
Guess I won't be making my own, any time soon! ;) Hahaha.

I've never looked into activated charcoal before, but I should be able to find it for sale, in bulk; somewhere here in the north.

F buying it in the pharmacy as capsules, in a small bottle for outrageous prices!
 
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#34 ·
I promise gentlemen, I'm not ignoring this thread. I'll be back tomorrow to give it a good reading and I appreciate your time. We just took our last boy to the hotel so he can leave for the AF in the morning and I just can't concentrate tonight. I just need ice cream and a crappy movie to settle the momma brain.
 
D
#36 ·
Ceramic filter can be more or less fragile. I got a doulton candle filter in the mail broken and leaking activated charcoal bits. Katydyn filters seem more durable. Any ceramic filters can be damaged by freezing.
Some filters have a non replaceable ac core. The katydyn combi filter has a small compartment for granules of ac that can be replaced, I think good for sixty gallons plus the long life ceramic part. Has to be pumped though there is an adapter for a sink mount. Katydyne and platypus make inline ac filters, I think the platypus is sealed. Available on amazon.
 
#45 · (Edited)
Yeah, you have no biological protection and you'll have a lot of trouble with turbidity.

It will be a lousy filter and what it does do it won't do for very long.

And do you just plan to stand there with it? True filtration takes a bit of time. A couple gallons could take hours. If it's filtering fast it's not filtering much.

What you are talking about is an expedient partial job. That's not the purpose of this thread. This thread is about doing it right. The end of the world hasn't happened yet so you have time to make a true filter system that does the job right. Now is not the time to be making cheap half baked gear to save money. When the time comes, safe water will be more precious than fancy French champagne.

If you want to talk about expedient methods this isn't the thread for you.
 
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#47 ·
If you really want long term Activated carbon filtration I would consider buying a 5 gal bucket of the AC on Amazon, then a 2 inch dia PVC pipe and pipe caps. then jury rig it as refillable AC filter. drill a hole in the bottom cap, pack some cotton or something to retain the activated carbon bed. Maybe put the filter between an upper bucket feeding it and a lower bucket recieving the filtered water. Seal the bottom cap with something removable like putty or silicon.
 
#49 ·
Trichlor has chlorine stabilizers (cyanuric acid) in it. OK for outdoor swimming pools but not something you need to be drinking.
 
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#66 ·
What test kit do I need? For basic water treatment.
I need chlorine levels,
Ph level
Turbidity
An app/calculator for the flocculant amount.
A "zero water" test meter?
What do I need to know about water:
For rain water off my roof and in my collection system.
For the lake water down the road,
For my neighbors pond water.
If I plan to flocculate, separate, filter and sanitize anyway, what test should I do.
 
#67 ·
Stoveman said:
What test kit do I need? For basic water treatment.
I need chlorine levels,Yes
Ph levelYes
TurbidityNO, they are too expensive
An app/calculator for the flocculant amount.Only for the first time.
A "zero water" test meter?Kinda yes
What do I need to know about water:
For rain water off my roof and in my collection system.
For the lake water down the road,
For my neighbors pond water.
If I plan to flocculate, separate, filter and sanitize anyway, what test should I do.
Click to expand...
Best thing I could say for all the water sources is to get a sample and have a lab analyze them. With a caveat.

If you plan on using ceramic candles, or a membrane, AND a post filtration carbon filter you really won't need to test your water much. Both of these type treatments will get out most everything that needs to be gotten rid of. Consider that I make potable water every day with sand filters. And both of these filters 'systems', even without a coagulant, will make better water then what 90% of the people in the USA are currently getting. That's why I call these systems idiot proof. It's almost impossible to make poor quality water with either of these.

Basically all you really need is a simple pool test kit to check chlorine and pH.
The rest isn't really needed but it is nice to check on occasion.

For coagulant you're generally pretty safe at 20 ppm for 'clear' looking water (anything less the 5 NTU 'looks' clear.) 3rd world standards for turbidity is 1 NTU. The US standard is .3 NTU. The water I make is typically .03 NTU. Ceramics and membranes will give you'.02 and ~ .01 NTU respectively.


For coagulants I'm not about to do the math but it's like a few drops per 5 gallon. There's 3,785.4118 cc in a gallon.
Rough math puts it around 1 drop per gallon to get 10 ppm.

pH adjustment can be made with baking soda to raise the pH. And lemon juice (citric acid) to lower the pH. For small batches you might need a smidgen of either to attain a pH of 7.2 -7.8
 
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#70 ·
Total dissolved solids according to what it says on their Amazon ad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_dissolved_solids

Though that's just what they say it does. How total suspended solids, as opposed to dissolved, factors into their readings I don't know.

You would probably need to email them for a more detailed explanation.
 
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#73 ·
A 55 gallon drum of activated charcoal will costs you thousands of dollars when a mere 5 gallon bucket of it will costs you around $100.

And a 55 gallon drum of standard charcoal will not work as well as a mere cup of activated charcoal.

None of the above will remove even the largest of microbe parasites.

So your plan otherwise with all those drums is just a common sediment filter, which you could do better by buying a $30 spun fiber house water filter that you can hold in your hand.


dmas said:
Filter then chlorinate only because of viruses? Or is chlorination just an added level of safety?
Click to expand...
Viruses are not a realistic threat in temperate areas. The "Lower 48" is all temperate. Only tropical and polar regions have realistic viral threats.

So doing both chlorine and a biological filter would only be for peace of mind. Either should do a proper job for the biological threat portion of treatment.
 
#74 ·
I chlorinate because there's always a chance of cross contamination. Especially when the raw water is above the finished water. (and well, **** happens) That and when used for wiping down counters, or cleaning dishes it kills bacteria. Remember that bacteria, mold and yeast are everywhere, including the air. Leaving water out and unprotected could lead to bacterial growth in the filtered water.

That, and it's how I've made potable water my whole life, including in the Navy when I made distilled water. (though there we used bromine instead of chlorine.) Even when we pulled into port we checked for a chlorine residual or we didn't hook up the water supply from land.

By the same token, even municipalities that run off of well water they chlorinate. For all my experience this is the industry standard. This includes the membrane plant where I work. I've seen where the chlorine level drops after chlorine treatment at the membrane plant. So it seems there's still stuff in the water after going through a membrane plant.

I'd rather drink a known safe water then questionable water.
 
#83 ·
The knowledge and intelligence is appreciated, and the depth of wisdom on the survivalistboards.com forum is amazing!
First there is the total chlorine, and free chlorine issue but if you are dealing with filtered water, that should limit the "not free" chlorine right?
If you had a chlorine tester, could you train your nose to detect chlorine levels, at the low levels needed for sanitizing drinking water?
If you can smell chlorine then it should be high enough, right? You could hit it on the high side. Then you could wait until it aerates some, and until it smells ok, before you drink it.
Also I have tasted chlorine in drinking water from a local utility, so I know I can sense low levels of chlorine.
And there are more uses for water, other than drinking, lots will be used for sanitation.
There is kitchen sanitation and hand washing water, at higher levels of chlorine.
So I am not ready to give up on the sniff and taste method.
The nose, tongue, and eye, can be very good chemical detectors, with training.
 
#84 ·
Stoveman said:
The nose, tongue, and eye, can be very good chemical detectors, with training.
Click to expand...
......with training and some fantastic luck in genetics.

Professional tasters and smellers exist but are extremely rare and are well trained after it has been determined they were born gifted.

The human animal has one of the worst suite of senses in the entire animal kingdom. The differences aren't even close.

We sometimes beat individual animals in one physical sense or another but those same animals have other senses that leave us in the dust. As an aggregate score over taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing, and vibration sense we are way down the list in near virtual isolation.

What we have are good brains that compute a lot of fuzzy logic to intuit from limited sensory data to get a respectable answer.

I know you are looking for a way to dispense with fragile supplies and limited consumables by thinking you can put it in your head.

It's an understandable concern. But it's a waste of time reaching a goal that is genetically dependent so few can achieve.
 
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