Water purif. scenario

Joined
Feb 16, 2000
Messages
32
As you guys may have heard, the d**b-f++k Romanians have polluted the Danube river. Lets assume that you are travelling in this area and the polluted river is your only water source. The poison is cyanide.
How would you get drinkable water.
Robert
 
Considering it is CYANIDE, I'd try a different RIVER! LOL

I don't know if you 'can' get away cyanide, I'd hate to see the filtration system.

Good luck!


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Plainsman :)
primitiveguy@hotmail.com

You use what you have on you, then you improvise! :)
 
Evaporative distillation. I believe cyanide can be had in crystalline form, so as long as you keep some water in the base to keep the temp down below whatever cyanides melting point is, then you should be able to get clean stuff.

One way for mass, semi-primitive distillation is an open system using a condensing plate. Get a piece of metal, as large as you can, and preferable concave and conical. Build a fire, and put a pot of water on to boil. Place your metal sheet over the boiling pot of water. Point the small end into a water container (See? You gotta have one
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) Improvise some way to keep a large mass of cool earth on top of the metal sheet (You need a cool mass, preferably replaceable when it warms up). This will condense a portion of the water you boil off, and all you need to do is keep the boiling pot full. Your water will taste like smoke, and will have little burnt floaties in it. It should not be a problem, and should be pretty full. And will give you your full iron US RDA (Or whatever metal you use..
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)

This could be used for any kind of purifying, but is somewhat unnecessary unless you have known non-organics in the water that will not be removed or detoxed by boiling.

Stryver

 
Jimbo,
it is an ecological disaster. A dam from a Australian-owned gold mine in Romania broke or leaked, and cyanide spilled into a river which leads to the Danube. Zillions of tons of fish died, people in Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria(?) can´t use the water any more, and the wave is arriving at the Danube delta area, which is an UN protected ecosystem.
I´m personally are not in danger, but I just wondered what I would do in such a situation, if this river would be the only water source. I think the field-expidient water distillation method described above would work.
Robert
 
Jimbo,
it is an ecological disaster. A dam from a Australian-owned gold mine in Romania broke or leaked, and cyanide spilled into a river which leads to the Danube. Zillions of tons of fish died, people in Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria(?) can´t use the water any more, and the wave is arriving at the Danube delta area, which is an UN protected ecosystem.
I´m personally are not in danger, but I just wondered what I would do in such a situation, if this river would be the only water source. I think the field-expidient water distillation method described above would work.
Robert
 
After reading more about it, it was an actual spill, and not a leak, so once the pulse is past you, the water will be as safe as ever to drink (Barring floating carcasses). There were a few cities that acted with much wisdom as the crap approached them, filling lakes over-full, and then blocking them off, and shutting off all water coming in from the river till everything had passed.

I wonder if you could get away with charging the firm with one count of poaching for every fish killed...
smile.gif


Stryver
 
Chemical precipitation of the cyanide followed by filtration and then the use of an ion exchange resin filter should get all of it.

WRT to dam at the mine breaking, you can bet that the owners of the facility will be held accountable within the limits of the law for not properly maintaining the dam and contaminating the water supply. The only problem is that I doubt that there are any regulatory penalties to be applied and the suits in international courts will take forever.

Take care,

Mike

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TANSTAAFL
 
With what do you precipitate cyanide? In that realm, what form of cyanide is normally used for gold operations?

Stryver
 
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