7 ms·
Flocculant/Disinfectant Powder
- pengaru 5y agoHow long before we see a headline about Haitian wildlife choking to death on non-biodegradable P&G flocculant wrappers littering the landscape? The P&G branded plastic cup was a nice touch too.
- S_A_P 5y agoSaw this stuff on Mark Robers channel. Pretty amazing stuff. Been thinking of finding some for an emergency kit.
- JonathonW 5y agoIf you’re in the US or Canada, you probably want something else for water purification in your emergency kit (iodine or a good filter or the equipment to boil water)— bleach (including the calcium hypochlorite in this stuff) won’t adequately kill Giardia cysts or Cryptosporidium.
- wtallis 5y agoWhen my scout troop is teaching the Emergency Preparedness merit badge, we often do an exercise on bulk treatment of water beyond what is practical to filter with the portable filters we take on backpacking trips. We use alum as a flocculant, then sand to filter, then battery-powered UV sterilization (while noting that leaving clear water out in full sun for a few hours will accomplish the same dose as stirring a UV lamp through a bucket for a minute or two). Alum isn't exactly a common household item these days and the UV lamp certainly isn't, but it does make for a cheap and compact kit that can treat a lot of water with relatively little time and effort.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago> Alum isn't exactly a common household item these days You can often find it in the spice section. People use it to make pickles. McCormick/Schilling sells it, among other major brands. Walmart sells "Hoosier Hill Farm" brand for about $15/pound.
- wtallis 5y agoMy point was more that it isn't something people are likely to already have on hand at home. It's certainly readily available and extremely cheap for this purpose, but you need to actually buy some before a disaster hits.
- Spooky23 5y agoDepends on the family! Hoarding the clearance pickling supplies after the season is over is a long tradition in my family. :)
- Turing_Machine 5y agoChlorine will kill giardia. You just have to wait somewhat longer. Giardia is definitely present in Pakistan, where this is being manufactured.
- quercusa 5y agoI picked up a case of Crypto during a day trip to Milwaukee for a lunch meeting back in the 90s (they had a water treatment issue). 0/10, would not recommend.
- redisman 5y agoHow is it better than existing water purification tabs or a filter like lifestraw?
- Turing_Machine 5y agoWell, for one you get 10 l of water at a time. For another, most water purification tablets taste horrible, and don't do anything about sediment.
- tdeck 5y agoWater purification tablets are either chlorine (most common) or iodine based. So essentially this is the equivalent of a chlorine based tablet plus some flocculent to cause sediment to settle out of the water.
- DanBC 5y agoA lifestraw is better at removing bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. See page 7 here. https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/hwt-scheme-round-1-report.pdf https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/hwt... I don't know the cost of lifestraws to NGOs, but I guess they're more expensive. And you need one lifestraw per person, where these sachets can do bulk buckets of water.
- Turing_Machine 5y agoThe 'zon has it, but at an outrageous markup over the 3.5 cents per packet mentioned in the article.
- creddit 5y agoThe ‘zon????
- avmich 5y ago> powdered ferric sulfate (a flocculant) and calcium hypochlorite Are you saying those two components are too expensive on Amazon?..
- Turing_Machine 5y agoYou could certainly brew your own. I was referring to the fact that Amazon sellers are charging 50 cents to two dollars (!) for a packet that is sold by the manufacturer for 3.5 cents.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoPuts it in line with all the other overpriced outdoors gear.
- 5y ago
- MooMooMilkParty 5y agoMy guess is if you're posting here you're not necessarily the target market for this product. You might be better with just a Sawyer squeeze or other off the shelf filter. If you're looking for clarifying turbid water you could get a bottle of alum from the grocery store and use that as a flocculant. Or if you wanted heavier duty there's "Water Wizard for River Runners" which is made of stuff which is often used for wastewater treatment.
- engineer_22 5y agoYou could also ask your local water provider what their emergency plan is. Some parts of their emergency plan are confidential, but they are required by law to have a plan. The larger operators already have their Risk and Resiliency plans in effect, and smaller operators have a July deadline for their R&R plans. It's been my experience that water operators take a lot of pride in their work and are happy to educate the public about what it is they do.
- Johnny555 5y agoI'd rather prepare myself than rely on my provider's emergency plan. I can be sure if my house survives the disaster and I have my own purifier (whether this product or something else), then I'll be able to have drinking water. But even if my provider has a great plan, disaster plans aren't truly tested until the disaster strikes, so that plan may not be sufficient. I have both stored fresh water as well as a filter in case of emergency, I'm not counting on my local water authority being able to pump water uphill to where I live for long during a disaster.
- engineer_22 5y agoThat's wise. Still curious what local utility says. Might be eye opening. I used to supervise a treatment plant, we were well prepared to deal with disasters. FYI a flocculant can be used to settle out really dirty water, it needs to be mixed well to work correctly. Flocculants include ferric and alum. Bleach is typically used as a disinfectant to reduce bacteria and viruses. Oocysts are not destroyed by chlorine and have to be filtered out. Most surface water treatment plants use sand filters. Granulated carbon filters are increasingly common to remove trace chemical contaminants, but these will also adsorb chlorine, advise disinfectant after the filter step.
- lenitabinol 5y agoThis is amazing. As someone who has lived in conditions where safe water isn't freely available, this costing 3.5 cents and being manufactured in an emerging market is life changing.
- ekianjo 5y agoAs hinted by the article this is not news. PG has been doing that for almost 2 decades by now.
- refurb 5y agoAn the technology is really old school. Flocculant has been used forever to remove fine particles and bleach to disinfect.
- peteretep 5y agoI have recently acquired a small swimming pool, and my wife has taught me the expression to “flocc and shock” for removing debris. This appears to be the etymology
- op00to 5y agoThe difference isn’t that it’s using fancy technology, it’s that the product is standardized and fully proven via real world clinical trials.
- gumby 5y ago“Flocculant” isn’t a product name, it’s a description of the function of an agent (like a “detergent” that makes a liquid less turgid). A flocculant will clump the fine particles together so the clumps will be large enough to be strained out.
- adflux 5y agoPg?
- londons_explore 5y ago3.5 cents per sachet seems very expensive in bulk. A sachet probably only contains a gram or so, meaning these ingredients are being sold at $35/kilo. $3/kilo sounds far more reasonable, and it should be sold in 1kg containers and users instructed to use a teaspoon per large bucket.
- kijin 5y agoThere seem to be two main use cases for this stuff. One is everyday disinfection of drinking water. For that purpose a large container might be more economical, provided that it can be kept reasonably watertight through three years of daily use. (1 gram per day per family means a 1kg container will last 2-3 years.) The other is emergency use in disaster zones for a limited amount of time. For this purpose a bunch of sealed sachets is much easier to transport and distribute despite the high unit cost.
- leetrout 5y agoAt least for sodium hypochlorite in solution it loses its disinfection properties quickly as I understand it. I wonder if it would have to stay in the packets or smaller containers to maintain its efficacy?
- londons_explore 5y agoAnything sealed will work. A glass jam jar is 8 cents and can hold 1 kg.
- leetrout 5y agoSunlight destroys chlorine — is it only when it’s in water or would it affect the powder too?
- raverbashing 5y ago"By 1kg bucket" sounds good but it is probably very unstable outside of the sachet (hygroscopic, could dissociate, could clump up, etc) (probably more than 1g per sachet, 4g as it says in the picture)
- publicola1990 5y agoHow does it work if water has dissolved salts?
- Blahah 5y agoIt's not going to be much use in distilled water, so it pretty much exclusively works in water with dissolved salts.
- Johnny555 5y agoAre you saying it will turn saltwater into freshwater (it won't), or it will purify saltwater, but it will still be saltwater? I'm not sure which the OP was asking about.
- Blahah 5y agoI wasn't really saying either, but it certainly won't desalinate water. I was saying that almost all water this would be used on will contain dissolved salts, so that asking "what about water with dissolved salts" is moot.
- peter_retief 5y agoI worked as an extraction metallurgist in semi desert mines and we used an aluminium based flocculant (alum) to clarify water in dams with rotating stirrers. Quite an old concept and not expensive.
- jfk13 5y agoYes - many years ago when I lived and worked in South Asia, it was common knowledge that swishing a lump of alum around in your bucket of dirty water would help to settle the sediment. Obviously it doesn't provide total purity, but it was a lot better than doing nothing. Apparently even the ancient Egyptians knew about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_alum#In_antiquity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_alum#In_antiquity
- geomark 5y agoHere in Thailand they sell those chunks of alum at village shops. Called สารส้ม in Thai. Villagers follow the same routine, swish it around in a bucket of dirty water to settle it out. Photo on the page at this link: https://pantip.com/topic/38053321 https://pantip.com/topic/38053321
- engineer_22 5y agoInterestingly the Holy See had a monopoly on alum in the middle ages.
- napier 5y agoGreat idea. What are the sachets made of though? Lined with plastic and destined to be burned on cooking fires and ditches along with all the other single use, single serving P&G product plastic packaging formats targeted at the developing world I'd wager.
- hedora 5y agoA better question is how much plastic waste is the end user producing, and what percentage of that is the sachet. Amdahl’s law, and what not.
- napier 5y agoIn developing country contexts the figures are easier to calculate than people think, due to the fact that functioning recycling and waste management systems are rare. Plastic waste improperly disposed of tallies almost 1:1 with production, and most production is carried out directly or on a contract basis by auditable multinational corporations. Thanks for educating me about Amdahl's law. Some interesting reading to do around that.
- EZ-Cheeze 5y agoDetailed video about this: https://youtu.be/6qZWMNW7GmE https://youtu.be/6qZWMNW7GmE
- techolic 5y agoHe claims P&G is selling it for a loss which I found to be less believable, would love to see if there're more information on that.
- sfifs 5y agoWe definitely don't make any profit from this and while I'm not familiar with the financials, we do donate these products as part of our CSR and for disaster relief operations. This is the official website. https://csdw.org/ https://csdw.org/
- hedora 5y agoI’d be curious to know what percentage of the cost is the packaging. Also, a link to lab results would be great. The article (but not the official website) says it removes some heavy metals. I wonder in what concentration, and which metals. Also, how does this compare in cost to a softener + carbon + uv/chlorine? Anyway, this looks like a fantastic technology. Thanks!
- selimnairb 5y agoThis is great, but what happens to the sachets? Are the biodegradable? When I was in India a few years ago I was struck by all the newly introduced non biodegradable packing strewn about EVERYWHERE. The old unfired clay cups used by road-side tea vendors were great, but they were rapidly being replaced by little white plastic cups. Plastic is a scourge on the land and water resources.
- FredPret 5y agoI wonder how long it'll take for a plastic-eating microorganism to evolve. Apparently trees evolved hundreds of millions of years before the bacteria that can make wood rot arrived, so you probably had piles of dead trees everywhere for such a long time.
- PicassoCTs 5y agoThe bacteria was a fungi, and yes trees piled up for a long time. We use them today - as coal deposits.
- asah 5y agohow did new trees grow when the ground was covered in piles of dead trees?
- Pfhreak 5y agoTrees are capable of growing in and on other trees. Also, most of the tree comes from air, not the ground.
- FredPret 5y agoDo you happen to know what percentage of trees are from CO2 and what from the soil? I’ve always wondered how much carbon is captured in, say, a book, or a dresser
- tonyarkles 5y ago
- throwawaysea 5y agoWhat's the difference between this and water purifiers for camping, such as https://www.potableaqua.com/products/pa-with-pa-drinking-water-germicidal-tablets/ https://www.potableaqua.com/products/pa-with-pa-drinking-wat...
- jrj8ffkjr 5y agoThis is 1 cent per liter. Your link is 50 cents per liter.
- Johnny555 5y agoThat's probably not a fair comparison, there's only 20mg of the active ingredient (Tetraglycine Hydroperiodide) per purifying tablet and has expensive packaging and marketing costs. Admittedly, I don't know how much that ingredient costs in bulk, but I bet if an agency wanted to produce it in bulk for widespread water purification, it'd cost a lot less than 50 cents/L
- Johnny555 5y agoPotable Aqua will not remove sediment from the water, if you use it to purify muddy water, it will still be muddy but without bacterial/viral contaminants. So you'll still be drinking whatever contaminants (heavy metals, etc) that are making the water muddy. So you'd still want to filter dirty water before drinking (and to remove cryptosporidium cysts which are not killed by Potable Aqua) The flocculant agent in this product binds with the sediment, making it easier to filter out with a simple cotton filter.
- fnord77 5y agothe CDC is advertising for P&G?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jawns 5y agoIf P&G is really not making a penny off this, I'm fine with a little CDC plug.
- stevespang 5y agoThe powdered ferric sulfate in the formula is a health risk for all men and non menstruating women as the soluble iron is not removed during the process. This level of iron will produce toxicity in part through free radical promotion.This is equivalent to poisoning people.
- sthnblllII 5y ago-Multiple steps are necessary—requires training or demonstration -Requires a lot of equipment (2 buckets, cloth, and a stirrer) I think this gets at the heart of the issue. If stiring in a powder and straining your water to prevent disease and parasites is too complicated to understand or too time consuming to do consistently, imaging how difficult it will be for these people to build water treatment plants and ultimately build an industrialized economy. Which is why they haven't done so while other nations did it without any assistance centuries ago. There simply is no easy solution to poverty in the third world, and obsessing over it will get you nowhere.