JGeropoulas said:
The last issue of National Geographic is devoted to Water. In the first few pages of the "Visions On Earth" section, they show how some organization has helped start a water purification program: The natives fill up plastic bottles (the "safest" type?) with the clearest water they can find and then lay them out on the roof in the sun for 24 hours. This is supposed to kill all pathogens and provide safe drinking water. Seems too simple and good to be true, but somehow, it seems perfectly natural -- somehow, quite familiar (i.e. boiling water?).
A more explanation and confirmation regarding Solar water disinfection is:
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SODIS said:
Solar water disinfection, also known as SODIS[1] is a method of disinfecting water using only sunlight and plastic PET bottles. SODIS is a free and effective method for decentralized water treatment, usually applied at the household level and is recommended by the World Health Organization as a viable method for household water treatment and safe storage.[2] SODIS is already applied in numerous developing countries. Educational pamphlets on the method are available in many languages.[3]
According to the article depending on the strength of sunlight one will need more or less time.
And while I am in this thread there is another way to remove unwanted solids from water besides RO and steam distilling. It was explained to me by a hydrologist I met in Odessa in Ukraine in 93. Odessa got water from the Nistru river and it was not that healthy, so his retired father spent part of his day cleaning water for the family. First the water was boiled, then cooled, then the stuff floating on top was removed, and then it was frozen. During freezing the water molecules would tend to freeze first forming a clear ice whereas the cloudy and often porous ice containing salts and other stuffs would freeze last. Taking the ice, or mostly frozen water out of the freezer he would save the clearer ice and throw away the parts that were cloudy or not yet frozen.
Someone posted something about vitalizing water with crystals. There are also many companies that deal in this field. In German there is a book with reviews of 40 gadgets supposed to do the job: (_http://www.amazon.de/Geräte-zur-Wasserbelebung-Möglichkeiten-Wasseraufbereitung/dp/3038003107/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279045430&sr=1-1)Geräte zur Wasserbelebung: Ein praktischer Führer mit Tests von 40 Geräten - Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Wasseraufbereitung
It was a very old, I think 87 or 88 years, very informed German teacher who showed me the book, but he had developed his own system which he felt was very simple and did not cost nearly as much, and to his thinking was better, only it takes time to do it unless one has set up a system of tanks and a feedback controlled pump.
His claim was to be able to vitalize the water by a series of vortexes that he set up. He would let the water into a pot with a hole in, in such a way that the water was made to spin anti-clockwise, from there flow into a similar pot where it now would flow clockwise and end up flowing into a third pot where the spin again was anti-clockwise. One could add more spin turns but three he had found to be enough, just as he emphasized that one should begin and end with left spins. The water tasted better and lighter than the ordinary RO water that he used, which again was better than the local tap water.
Instead of tanks or pots one can for small make do with one cup with a hole in, a cup to pour water into the cup with whole in (holding the hole with a finger as one does so), a collection tray, a container for the water that one wishes to energize and a stick to stir and induce the spin direction with as the water begins to run into the tray from the cup with hole.
Besides energizing the water he used a similar technique which I have not got the details of right now to make medicine and he told me that it had helped him to maintain good health. For all purposes of vitalizing water or making medicine he emphasized the need to use new cups and sticks. He used PET plastic cups and trays and a thin wooden stick, the type of which I think is usually used to support flowers and to which he attached a bit of cotton with some thread to give it more impetus on the water and make the spin happen easily.
