Purifying Water

Potassium permanganate is some dangerous stuff to mess around with. Just a few crystals on your fingertips and your tips will tingle for qite a few minutes. There is also no reliable "dose" for purifying water that I can find. Wiseman and Davies both say to color the water light pink. I'd like a little more information than that when you are talking about something that will make you tingle for a few min. from skin contact with a very small amount.

It has other uses, it's interesting to toy with if you are careful.
 
Don Rearic said:
Potassium permanganate is some dangerous stuff to mess around with. Just a few crystals on your fingertips and your tips will tingle for qite a few minutes. There is also no reliable "dose" for purifying water that I can find. Wiseman and Davies both say to color the water light pink. I'd like a little more information than that when you are talking about something that will make you tingle for a few min. from skin contact with a very small amount.

It has other uses, it's interesting to toy with if you are careful.
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It's not a bad thing to have along though. Potassium permanganate and a little Glycerin = instant fire!
 
Dat's why I said it was interesting to toy with if you were careful. Swan Brand Glycerin, available at your better pharmacies. :D

Good to stain snow with and a few other uses as well.
 
Interesting that PP keeps showing up in survival literature from the UK, primarily by ex-military types. I asked the bushcraft folks in the UK why. They had no explanation, thinking it a very chancy method.
 
Hi Thomas,
Good thread. You write that chlorine is ineffective against crypto, but do not mention it being ineffective against giardia also. From what I've read, it seems that iodine is more reliable against giardia than chlorine.
Also read that the "shell" of the cysts hardens as the temp drops, effectively meaning that less iodine can enter, thus the longer contact times for cold water.

Someone mentioned UV being blocked by glass containers. It's my understanding that it is only one type of UV light (UV-C) that is blocked by glass and plastic, that is the germicidal UV used by steripen. Apparently UV-A and B are able to get through these materials, and these are relied upon in SODIS. Anyone have any info on this?
 
beef said:
Hi Thomas,
Good thread. You write that chlorine is ineffective against crypto, but do not mention it being ineffective against giardia also. From what I've read, it seems that iodine is more reliable against giardia than chlorine.
Also read that the "shell" of the cysts hardens as the temp drops, effectively meaning that less iodine can enter, thus the longer contact times for cold water.
Click to expand...
Check the new version.

Someone mentioned UV being blocked by glass containers. It's my understanding that it is only one type of UV light (UV-C) that is blocked by glass and plastic, that is the germicidal UV used by steripen. Apparently UV-A and B are able to get through these materials, and these are relied upon in SODIS. Anyone have any info on this?
Click to expand...
It's the UV-A that the SODIS people discuss:
http://www.sodis.ch/files/note2.pdf
 
Great OP !

I would add gathering water from the middle of a lake (and below the surface) is better than stagnate surface water at the shoreline.

Also, I think, at a river better to gather below rapids made by rocks than at calm pools...

... at least this is what I have always done. :p
 
Great post, I've been putting together an emergency preparedness/bugout/camping backpack and potable water was a very important part of it. After I did my research this is what I came up with so far. For filtration I have something called a British millbank water filter. It is basically a light green canvas bag with a black line on it that looks to hold about 3 to 4 liters of water.You soak the bag in water then fill the bag to the top with water. Then you hang the bag up (IT has a brass grommet that you can put rope or paracord through) and allow the water to run down to the level of the black line on the bag. At that point your ready to put your container under it to collect the water. After I use the filter I will then boil the water and use water purification tablets (army chlor-floc tabs).
 
I think the reason Potassium Permanganate is mentioned in so much SAS materials is because it can do a lot of stuff. You have to remember that when you are talking about a firestarter that depending on what you mix it with and in what concentration you mix it with combined with the temperature of the area...well, you have an improvised incendiary device or trigger for something else horrendous...

I had a nice conversation with a Pharmacist and he is in his 70s and remembers when pharmacies would carry it, it was very, very common to get an Rx for Potassium permanganate along with directions for mixing it into the proper solution to treat fungal infections. This is coming from the Pharmacist and not me, people can scream "conspiracy theorist!" all they want, I don't care...but he said it worked very well and the reason it was probably removed was because drugs were created to treat the fungal infections. In his opinion, Potassium permanganate worked very well. YMMV. This is also why you probably see it as almost a traditional thing to the SAS, they spent/spend a lot of time in the jungle...

He also said that before Roe v. Wade, it was an "underground" abortive.

And...well, redundancy, you can stain snow with it! :D
 
Don,

Multiple uses is all good. (What can one do with a large, bright orange rubber baloon? Let me count the ways.)

I think they should mention that there are much better chemicals around, not to mention filters - all equally quiet and sneaky

Tom
 
I've been thinking of adding Potassium Permanganate to my kit based on some of the things I've heard. I carry a Aqua Mira Frontier Pro which will handle Crypto and Giardia, but still leaves viruses to deal with. Seems like Potassium Permanganate should be able to easily handle the rest since Frontier is doing the heavy lifting in removal of the tougher bugs. The benefit would be that PP can be used as an emergency firestarter, and mixed in higher concentration becomes a passable disinfectant.
 
I wouldn't... the dosage seems a little imprecise and risky. Didn't a kid die from accidentally swallowing some?
 
Good info in the original post.

I normally filter and treat with iodine or chlorine. I carry potassium permanganate as a back-up to my back up. It is sold in Brazil in little foil flats that make it very easy to include in a Altoids tin sized PSK. It also work for treating fungal infections and ringworm. For water treatment I put it in the category of better than nothing and easier than boiling if I don't have time.

I have found a wide variety of boil times concerning water. I use an illustration that puts it in perspective. The largest single cell we commonly encounter is the chicken egg. It takes about seven minutes to hard boil a large egg, cooking it through. Smaller eggs such as from a quail will hard boil in about two minutes. How long does it take to hard boil a micro-organism with a diameter of a few microns? They reach the boiling point at the same time the water does. Mac
 
Racerx2oo3 said:
I've been thinking of adding Potassium Permanganate to my kit based on some of the things I've heard. I carry a Aqua Mira Frontier Pro which will handle Crypto and Giardia, but still leaves viruses to deal with. Seems like Potassium Permanganate should be able to easily handle the rest since Frontier is doing the heavy lifting in removal of the tougher bugs. The benefit would be that PP can be used as an emergency firestarter, and mixed in higher concentration becomes a passable disinfectant.
Click to expand...
My Google on the Frontier Pro showed its a 3 micron filter. While that gets the big nasties, it misses some bacteria, as well as the viruses.
 
pict said:
Good info in the original post.

I normally filter and treat with iodine or chlorine. I carry potassium permanganate as a back-up to my back up. It is sold in Brazil in little foil flats that make it very easy to include in a Altoids tin sized PSK. It also work for treating fungal infections and ringworm. For water treatment I put it in the category of better than nothing and easier than boiling if I don't have time.

I have found a wide variety of boil times concerning water. I use an illustration that puts it in perspective. The largest single cell we commonly encounter is the chicken egg. It takes about seven minutes to hard boil a large egg, cooking it through. Smaller eggs such as from a quail will hard boil in about two minutes. How long does it take to hard boil a micro-organism with a diameter of a few microns? They reach the boiling point at the same time the water does. Mac
Click to expand...

Everything dies before boiling, but if we get it to a rolling boil, we can be sure.

Interesting table here on temperatures to kill nasties: http://www.ziemia.org/sodis.php

F = C x 1.8 + 32 so 60C = 140 F. Water boils at 212 F or 100 C.
 
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