Sterilising Water

when we fill up with questionable water as you do on the CSR we try to put it in the second tank rather than the main. (we have two water tanks, one purely for known good drinking water and one for washing etc.) Both are around 50 litres.
If as on the CSR we need to top up the 'drinking' tank we boil and allow to sit before putting it in.
Usually though we just top up the 'washing' tank and on the rare occasion the 'drinking' runs out, then we boil 3 or 4 billies last thing before going to bed and allow to cool/settle overnight. Then top up drinking bottles and the rest in the 'drinking' tank.

Well... you could drink beer, someone told me that there was water in beer...

Would a solar still of some kind do the trick?

john

Have Puritabs sodium dichloroisocyanurate for emergencies. Approx $10 for 36 tabs and 1 tab to 2 litres of water if left to stand for 30 mins.

Don't get to use them often, prefer to boil water.

Have never ever ever bothered with sterilising water even though we carry Puritabs.

On the CSR we just cheked the water supplies available and if it looked sus we left it alone.

Have drunk water out of wells, station bores, creeks, sulphur bores(have to let the sulphur settle overnight), water holes, gnamma holes, rock holes, waterfalls and have never been crook anywhere in Australia over a 38 year period !!!

A study was done and one of the best water purifiers was good old fashion cordial ! Bickfords was used in the study I think.
It drops out any impurites and salt in the water and they settle out in the bottom not sure on bacteria.
I have yet to try it out myself, it would be a easy experiment though.

Probally not handy if you want to cook or make tea with it, but some like there food and tea sweet.

Just some trivia for you all.

Hi,
There is some interesting info at this sight www.sodis.ch/ and also the solar cooking sight which is mentioned in the next post,
regards, Wayne

I have used Betadine 3-4 drops per litre for sterilising then add cordial to enable you to drink it, does kill Giardia though.

See Ya

Brian B

there is quite a discussion on purifying at

Site Link

seems that hikers tend to think a little more on this.

I use a simple household filtration system that I got from Bunnings. AquaPure brand filter housings with Cuno brand 0.5 micron solid extruded carbon filter. Yes it is fine enough to remove faecal coliform bacteria, Giardia and cryptosporidium cysts. I simply pump the water through with a Flowjet 4L min pump connected to 12V. You can get 20 L through with a hand pump but it is hard work.

The unit has two filter housings as you would use under the kitchen sink. These take several different grades of cartridge from very coarse to remove sediment from the Murray river (or Adelaide tap water for that matter). I use a 5 micron cartridge ($5 to $10) in the first housing and an ultra fine 0.5 micron extruded carbon cartridge in the second ($25 to $50 depending on brand). I have filtered about 200L of Murray river before changing the first filter. If the first cartridge is fine enough you can get a longer life out of the second more expensive cartridge, six months household use of Perth water or 1000L of Murray river (if you change the first cheap one regularly).

The bonus is that the water tastes good enough to drink (without cordial). Makes good coffee even in areas with “hard water” without the kettle crusting up with calcium carbonate.

It is a bit more bulky than a bottle of cordial but the pump is also used for the shower and the filter housing and cartridges also get used as my normal home drinking water system. No need to risk poisoning yourself with heavy metals or nasty anti bacterial to have safe water. If you are in a very risky area, you can filter it first then use a smaller dose of antibacterial.

Geordie

Impractical for 4wd, but I've recently been looking at a machine that extracts drinking water from almost any liquid, including some of the vilest cattle watering holes I've seen. The inventor claims that he can purify any water except that contaminated by radiation.
Now there are 3 or 4 main ways of getting large amounts of fresh water commercially but apparently his process is unique and has been certified etc. I suggested that he license the technology to a company that can develop it.
Anyway, its impractical for 4wds because its a big machine and uses 3 phase power.
Now if he could only transistorise it ...........

Membrane plants such as nanofiltration and reverse osmosis are used to deliver drinking water from just about any source including sea water and yes, even to recycle sewage.

The problem is the amount of electricity required to drive the pumps to produce the presures required. Though cost of treatment has dropped so much that on an industrial level or municipal supply level, the costs are justified, the practicallities of making a portable unit for 4wd's is the problem.

I just sent a 130 t/hr containerised plant to a pacific island, it is in a 40 foot container and requires much more power than a truckload f 4wd batteries could deliver. Still 130t/hr would probably be a bit big for your 4b footloose :-)

I opperated a mobile water purification unit in the army for a few days and, from memory, all we used in it was pool chlorine and potash to stabilise the PH.

It was a long time ago though.

Many years ago on a Simpson Desert crossin and beeing unable to cross Eyre Creek we drove north to the Annandale Ruins to wait a few days for the country to dry out.
Our water supplies were running low, although there was plenty in the waterhole, but extremely muddy.
We filled every available bucket and container and then covered the water with a liberal amount of white ash from our camp fire.
Next morning all the mud and dirt had settled with the ash to the bottom of the containers and the water was crystal clear.
We poured it into our billy cans, taking care not to disturb the sediment at the bottom. After boiling the billy's and cooling down we topped up our water containers.
We kept that going for the 3 days we were there and then had plenty of good drinking water.

These days when I take people on tours I always carry "Micropur" and a few drops of that in my watertank kills all the nasties.
Here is a informative web site:
Katadyn

Cheers,
Mike

Only one not mentioned yet is UV light.

Find a clear container, fill and leave out in the sun for the day.
The UV kills a lot of germs.

Also have used the cordial, and the ask for settling that fine mud.

I think the Australian army were the first to use cordial.
It may the perservative in the cordial. But you do need to let sit for 8 to 12 hours.

I just boil it one kettle at a time. Have a cuppa.

Skinny

thanks for all your replies. in the end i've bought a 100ml bottle of Micropur Forte liquid which will sterilise 1000 litres and unlike the chlorine based products (aquatabs, puritabs etc) will also kill Giardia. Only cost $32 so very cost-effective too!!