Tree branch water filter?

[Shotgun]

I haven't read the full paper yet but thought some of you guys might want to check it out. From a breif skimming it looks as though you can use a tree branch to filter bacteria out of drinking water. Too cool.


http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0089934

 

[abo4ster]

Thanks for sharing. I found it very interesting.

 

[Phydeaux]

Haven't carefully read through and let it ruminate in my head yet, but it a great idea.

Ric

 

[TLR]

I read through a decent portion of it. It makes sense and I think I'm going to try several of these this year at the survival camp for 7-9th graders that I instruct at this summer. Thanks for the reference Shotgun!

 

[JWL]

I haven't read the full article carefully, but I gather that there is a certain amount of pressure required to force the water through the branch. I wonder how this could be replicated in the field?

 

[averageiowaguy]

I've tried that in the past (years ago). It makes a lot of sense but the problem I had was getting enough water to go through it in an amount of time that made sense. There are too many variables involved - type of wood, density of wood, etc. to make this something that I would rely on, but it was fun to play with.

 

[Barbarossa]

Awesome article, thanks for the info and this looks like a great thing to try. I'm off to grab some tubing, a clamp, and use one of my syringes to add some pressure.

 

[OutspokenOne]

So I have also read this article, on several websites to try and get the best perspective on how this may work, and it is a gravity filter, so no extra pressure is needed. But they can also work better than many of the portable water filters on the market, considering those water filters only filter down to 0.2 microns, whereas this can filter the water down from 0.5 to 0.07 microns. However, these tests were only done on softwood, white pine, and a 1 cm branch, which will only produce 4 gallons a day. I would like to see them conduct more tests on denser wood, and on a larger piece of wood to see if you would get the same results.

 

[james terrio]

It makes a lot of sense but the problem I had was getting enough water to go through it in an amount of time that made sense.

That's what I was wondering. I think it would be a lot quicker to burn the wood and boil the water

Maybe on a larger scale when time's not a factor it would work great. But I wouldn't wait until I was thirsty to do it.