UV Water purifiers

Joben

Joben

Joined
May 22, 2009
Messages
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I've seen ads for those water purification devices that use UV light.

Well i've got a UV LED flashlight off ebay for 10 bucks.
Why is a Steripen $80?
 
Different frequency of UV require different bulbs and I would imagine that the UV purifier would be built a lot more reliably than a UV flashlight.
 
Thats true, the $10 ebay item produces light and thats about it. The streipen produces the right freq of light and at the right level to nuke the DNA of the swimmers found in most open water. It doesn't kill the organism directly, but they don't live long lives anyways. What it does is killes the ability for them to reproduce, so even when you ingest them, they will not make you sick. 200 sick germs might go into you, but will not be able to reproduce into the 200 million that eats holes in your intestines.
 
personal pref. aside, I wonder which is better: the steripen or the katadyn pocket filter for extended use?
 
Use both! (filter first) Having wasted one vacation, I won't lose another when it is so easy to avoid problems.
 
What they said, sterilizers operate in the 200-300 NM band. That's the region where the UV light is effective at sterilization. Emitting this frequency at a level high enough to work in a small handheld device is costly right now.
Check out the prices here for a single bare LED emitter at that wavelength. http://shop.spectrecology.com/category.sc?categoryId=10 I'm not sure what steripen uses for their products, but I would imagine it's the majority of the product cost.
 
Sterilizers will negate any harmful effects of "living" organisms in the water, but chemical contaminants are also to be avoided. I recommend using an activated charcoal particulate filter as well as sterilization.
 
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