World's first virus-filtering water bottle

Talk about truly practical eco-tech.

The Lifesaver is a portable water filter system, offering clean water from any water source. Setting aside how handy this is for backpacking, this could be a huge leap forward for ensuring safe drinking water in developing countries, disaster areas, or war zones where clean water is in short supply. And it’s far more palatable than other icky but earth-friendly water filtration ideas.

The inventor is Michael Pritchard, who thought of the concept in response to recent natural disasters. The basic science is in creating a filter smaller than the smallest virus, which is 25 nanometers across. The filter, therefore, has holes 15 nanometers across, successfully trapping even the feistiest of disease-causing bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, and other waterborne pathogens. It is the world’s first filtration water bottle to achieve such thorough filtration.

The most important feature of the Lifesaver is the fact that it is useable by anyone, even children. Unscrew the base, dip it in a water source, screw the base back on, and quickly pump the water through the filter. The user can then drink the water right from the bottle.

And the filters are replaceable, but they won’t need to be replaced often – each filter can treat more than 1,050 gallons of water before shutting itself off, making them that much more practical and safe. Even better, zero chemicals are used!

Creating something that is so simple to use, yet provides a truly high-tech solution is a really big deal for disaster relief. While pretty expensive for an individual to purchase ($460), these are affordable for governments and organizations to purchase and provide in relief efforts or to soldiers.

This is a serious wonder-tool, but you kinda have to stop and think, “Why didn’t we have this already?” Thank you Michael Pritchard.

Via Inhabitat