[pct-l] Aquamira info

[Andrew Jones]

I did a search for the product they discussed in that link, and found the
manufacturer's webpage here:

http://products.katadyn.com/brands-and-products/produkte/Micropur_17.html

According to this site, the technology is actually based on silver ions,
with chlorine as a backup in one of the products. It doesn't say if they're
referring to sodium hypochlorite (chlorine bleach) or chlorine dioxide. The
silver ion thing kind of freaks me out - I know silver is a necessary part
of a diet, but consuming more than trace quantities of any heavy metal is
iffy in my book.

The main problem I saw with the "chlorine dioxide tablet" thing, is that you
MUST activate the sodium chlorite to produce chlorine dioxide. This
activation MUST take place between pH 4 - 5. Most surface water is between
6.5 - 8.0, so if you just toss a sodium chlorite tablet in that water,
nothing's going to happen. You'll have a solution of sodium chlorite, which
won't kill bacteria. It's possible that they include some dry citric acid in
the tablet, but it would take a lot of citric acid to shift the pH of a
liter of water, and the amount would change depending on the buffering
capacity of the water itself, so I doubt that would work either. The
Aquamira liquid system avoids these problems by activating the chlorine
dioxide before putting it in the water, so it can be done consistently
regardless of the chemistry of the water you're treating.

I forgot to mention before....try to avoid inhaling the fumes from the
Aquamira activation reaction, and don't get the concentrated stuff on you if
possible, pretty nasty stuff.

Andy


On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 9:55 PM, Bruce Harvey <bharve at dslextreme.com> wrote:

> Andrew,
> Thanks for your discussion.  Anything additional you could add regarding
> chlorine dioxide tablets?  Googling the phrase brings several hits.  A
> sample one is
>
> www.backpackgeartest.org/reviews/Water%20Treatment/Chemical%20Treatment/Katadyn%20MicroPur%20Tablets/Steve%20Nelson/Initial%20Report/
>
> Thanks
>
>
> On Mar 5, 2009, at 2:58 PM, Andrew Jones wrote:
>
>