Product Review #1

Okay, so I am at the sporting goods store checking out gear, and I am looking at the water filter systems, and I see this little "Purifier" unit from MSR that looks like a portable tire pump for a bicycle. They call it the Miox. Apparently it uses regular salt and raw freshwater and an electrolytic process is created from a pair of CR123s to convert the brine into MIxed Oxidants that, well, I'll just let you read about it here:

http://www.msrcorp.com/filters/miox.asp

Now it looks quite promising, but it looks a little pricey to me. I do believe that this little gem is one of those breakthrough items that ushers in a new gendre in gadgetry for us ETS'rs.

I've got one, my wife bought it for me for fathers day a year ago. Works well, at least I've never gotten sick. It's small, light, easy to carry, and makes your good water taste like it's been chlorinated. That said, it will kill viruses and cryptosporium and all the nasties that a filter might miss. The taste lessens with time and it's not horrible, but it's not all that great either.

On a side note i saw a UV light that goes into a Nalgene bottle and is supposed to be as effective. I'm tempted to try that one.

jm2bits

Hello Benjamin

I have just switched over to a Miox purified after using a Katadyne ceramic/active carbon pump for a long time.

I find the Miox is much lighter, such that it has become a part of my EDC. I regularly head up into the hills with as little as possible for a few days camping at a time and the less I have to lug the better.

The downside of the Miox is that it won't treat chemically polluted water, unlike the active carbon in the Katadyne - not a problem where I am, but it might be an issue for you. Also, it really does make the water taste like chlorine.

Still, it's light as a feather, really cheap to run and as I say it takes up almost no room in my bag. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

On ETS's Gear section Doug talks about the Miox purifier:

http://www.equipped.org/watrfood.htm#WaterPurification

Ken

I have a Miox and take it not only when I go outdoors, but when I travel too. It goes through, or used to go through airport security with no problem. I take it along with iodine crystals in solution (my low tech back up version). And I just ordered some MP-1 tablets as I am not sure if the MIOX will go through security and I know the iodine solution will not.

The MIOX is, as mentioned is a great water purifier for non-chemically contaminated water.

You may want to check out this post that has some links to previous postings on both the Steri-Pen and MIOX>

Steri-Pen and MIOX Postings

Pete

Pete

I recall someone mentioned the oxidants created by the MIOX are also helpful for sterilizing wounds. Can you shed any light on this?

A few of those MP-1 tablets might be more practical for EDC, but this looks like just the ticket for that "home away from home" scenario.

I'm not exactly a chemist, but It sounds like this device just electrolyzes a saturated salt solution to produce a sodium hypochlorite solution, AKA "bleach". Ref:
http://chem.lapeer.org/Chem2Docs/chlorine.html
I guess the advantage is that salt and lithium batteries have a longer shelf life than liquid bleach or tablets.

That brings up a question - On the ETS site it seems to say that only MIOX and Micropur MP1 tablets will reliably kill *everything* including Cryptosporidium. For some reason, I was under the impression that bleach is 100% effective also?

Bleach will kill the cyst based pathogens, but it takes time. Warmer water and highly filtered (little organic matter) will help with that. I don't recall anywhere on here where Chlorine Bleach doesn't take care of the same things. Bleach just isn't something that's easy to pack into a kit, and it loses potency over time rather quickly.

I was thinking that having to have battery plus salt (two consumables) for this tool was a negative, but shelf life changes that assessment. I think this would make a great addition to a BOB, but you have to remember that it can't filter toxic water. In a long term survival situation, getting salt and batteries might be easier than procuring bleach and keeping it stable. Plus, it's much less dangerous to handle salt. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

That may have come from me. I believe the MIOX system can be useful as a readily available source of disinfectant for surfaces such as plates, cups, water bottles, etc. I have not tested it to date, but plan on trying it out sometime this fall, when vacations are down and I will have more time in the lab. I believe that making up the MIOX solution at the higher (4X) rate will produce a concentrated additive which when added to small amounts of water, can then be sprayed or wiped onto surfaces for disinfection.

I further postulate that since the MIOX solution is obviously compatible with the human digestive tract, that a less concentrated solution say at the normal 1X strength, it might be a usable substitute as a wound cleaning solution. I have successfully used water from my EXSTREAM WATER BOTTLE PURIFIER for wound cleansing in the field after I have disinfected the mouthpiece.

Pete

Thanks for that, Pete. Interesting postulations which, if they bear fruit, would be useful to know about.

I'd be cautious regarding the MIOX solution & wounds - it's basically bleach, and bleach (as well as betadine, iodine, peroxide, etc..) are not good for wounds (tissue necrosis, impaired epithelialization, etc...)- a well diluted solution (to the point of being potable) would work ok as an irrigant. I definitely wouldn't put anything stronger in the wound (although medically used for a long time, sodium hypochlorite - Dakin's Solution - has fallen out of favor for the reasons listed above, among others)

BTW - keep an eye on EMS's website - they have some super deals occasionally - I picked up a MIOX set for $60 a couple of months ago.

I agree completely with your wise caution and as I stated, I would recommend the 1X concentration, which is potable. The MIOX solution in the presence of organic material, should breakdown rapidly into a weak NaCl solution, which should not introduce any significant tissue damage. As with any off label use of a product, great care should be used and the off use is a matter of personal decision. For me personally, I would have no problem using the 1X MIOX solution for wound cleansing, in the field.

Pete

I've been looking at other larger capacity MIOX generators, like they use for pools instead of the powdered bleaching process many of us are familiar with. Apparently, the electrolytic process produces both sodium hypochlorite and sodium hydroxide. This has a double whammy on the wee beastees, which is where the MIOX abbreviation apparently comes from. The form the hypochlorite is in they claim is more efficient due to it being generated and applied on-site, instead of sitting around. Used this way, it also seems less likely to react with various suspended organics, thus reducing the amount of Chloramination, which seems to be where the chlorine smell in pool water comes from, even though it appears that the hypochlorite isn't working. If the Chloride is bound up in Chloramines, it can't do it's disinfection job so well, and requires a strong shocking process to get it to release again. The Miox process recycles the solution back into a salt brine. This is so much better than buying those big buckets of chemicals at Costco every month.

So the MSR Miox and the Katadyn MP-1 Tabs must be a combination hydroxide and hypochlorite that is synergistic in disnfecting raw water. Now if they could add a suitable flocculant to the mix, then they would be almost identical to many municipal water treatement systems, scale being the biggest difference.

I would like to see if those two lithiums could be replaced or augmented with a hand crank generator. Wouldn't that be cool! I guess even sea water can be used as the electrolyitc solution in lieu of adding salt and raw fresh water.

Home-built MIOX. Scroll down to "Lab Hints"

Two pencils and a 9-volt battery. Getting the proper concentrations of oxidants is left to the builder. Still, might be useful in a pinch...

-Blast

Hi Benjammin.
The most extensive review/info on the MiOx can be found here:
http://www.prolitegear.com/cgi-bin/prolitegear/pl_msr_miox.html
The reason the MiOx does take crypto out as opposed to regular chlorine is that the MiOx creates hypochlorous acid and ozone in addition to the chlorine produced which kills off this particular nasty in max. 4 hours (worst case water. Nevertheless, stick to the 4 hours to be sure)
Also, someone mentioned using sea water for the brine....
BTDT, won't work ! Not salty enough <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />.
The url above also explains why.
Blast, thanks for the info on the DIY MiOx <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />.

Hope this helps.

Pharaoh.

Can anyone with a MIOX unit please tell me how much salt and how much water you add to the device, how long it runs per "button click" and how much of the resulting solution you add to your water?

Thanks!
-Blast

It might be best to check the specifics on the MSR web site.
With that said, I would estimate it takes about 2-3 ml of water. The salt is used several times until it is all used up. A small packet of salt should last at least 5-10 runs. It runs for approximately 10-15 seconds. Regardless of the number of times you press the button, it makes the same amount of MIOX solution (2-3 ml), just more concentrated.

Pete

How many test strips are included?

Alex

I checked the MSR website but it didn't give weights/volumes of any of the reactants. Can you give me an approximate amount of the salt used (tic-tac size, sugar packet size?) and do you dump the original 2-3mL of water into your water to be treated or just a few drops of the MIOX solution? I'm trying to reverse-engineer this thing. $100 is a bit steep for my pocketbook, but a 9-volt battery and two pencils I can handle.

Thanks.
-Blast

Hi

According to my instruction booklet the reaction chamber holds about 1ml of water.

Once it's full, you shake it 10 times to create a dilute brine from the rock salt which is held in another chamber above the reaction chamber. The chamber holds about four lumps of rock salt about the size of a tic-tac each. This is not the most accurate measurement but when you subsequently hit the button to activate the unit, it will let you know if the brine solution is too weak. I assume it does this electronically, by measuring the resistance of the solution.

According to the booklet the unit ships with 45g of rock salt which comes in the little bag provided and this is enough to treat about 200 liters of water.

The tricky part is the reaction time. The unit is designed to run for four different lengths of time and produce different concentrations of chlorox to treat 0.5, 1, 2 or 4 litres of water.

One click (0.5 l) and it runs for 5 seconds, two clicks (1 l) is 10 seconds. I tried four clicks (4 l) and it ran for about a minute.

The batteries it uses are CR123's in series, adding up to 6v.

It comes with 50 test strips.

I'm guessing that it should be a near-saturated solution. The concentration could be determined by the MIOX unit by measuring the conductivity of the solution ie by measuring the current flow.

Reaction time could be determined experimentally by using test strips just like you do to verify the MIOX results.

On the other hand, there's no way to determine if you're producing the "mystery ions" as the MIOX people claim that they can't detect them either. I think there's some voodoo going on there. Electrolysis of NaCl should be very well understood by now.

Hey Blast, Same here... it's a bit pricey for me to justify (but who knows). But more importantly, it would be valuable to know the field expedient measurements to use simply because I can think of a lot of situations where you wouldn't have this, but maybe you have a pencil or two, some wire, and a 9 volt from a toy in a car, etc.

I wish I still had access to a lab... wouldn't take too long to figure out the amount of salt and time @ voltage to react what you need. Hopefully someone here has the equipment to calculate it (I haven't been in a chem lab in 10 years! - I'd have to brush the dust off of the corner of my brain that understood this at one point) <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

It could be that the electrodes themselves are giving off ions (like Cu). That's likely why they are using carbon graphite from the pencils instead of dipping wire directly into the solution.

According to the MSR website the MIOX unit uses platinum electrodes for both the anode and cathode. These shouldn't release any ions under these conditions whereas the carbon/graphite *might* drop something off the anode. I'm not worried about toxicity but I am concerned about the carbon anode creating different oxidative products.

Hmm, 1 mL of a saturated NaCl solution, 6V DC, I need to look up the current put out by the three batteries. I wonder if a chlorine test kit for a pool would be able to help me measure the resulting chlorine strengths...

This could be a fun weekend. Note to self, review first aid for chlorine gas inhalation with Kuovonne...

-Blast

<img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Make sure you do this outside! Chlorine gas is rather nasty.

For more in depth discussion I found this site:
http://stuff.silverorange.com/archives/2004/september/msrmioxpurifier

Read the posts, especially responses by Katie Bolek from MIOX to many of the same questions and concerns posted here.

From the same article, Ms. Bolek mentions:


So, that should help set the foundation for some of the reactant quantities. Next question... are they using the straight 6 volts?

Blast, their rep mentions "A more "typical" shaking of the purifier will generate a brine concentration ranging between 60 and 80 g/L" That sounds like the base concentration and then the electrodes run power through them until the set dosage/concentration is sensed. They mention it is not time based because the amount of shaking changes the NaCL concentration and thus both the current resistance and the amount of salt available for reaction.

Perhaps it measures initial resistance and calculates the "low salt" message from that... Once it gets above it's threshold, it fires up, and based on dosage, probably just stops when the resistance changes by a certain percentage. Perhaps a multimeter would be helpful in this rig to get a good idea of the time/concentration ratio needed for a given volume of untreated water.

So far, so good. I made two electrodes from the lead of a #2 pencil and attached them to the leads of a 9-volt battery clip, then covered them but for 1/4 inch with shrink tubing. I drilled a hole in the bakelite cap of a 2mL bottle and stuck the bare portion of the electrodes through it into the bottle. The electrodes were held in place and the hole sealed with 5-minute epoxy.

MIOX states that a 60g NaCl per liter of water solution works best for making the mixed oxidants. This translates into about 2oz salt in 500 mL of water. The EPA states that municiple tap water should contain between 0.1 and 0.2 ppm (parts per million) of free chlorine to be considered safe. I picked up a "3-way test kit" (designed for measuring free chlorine in pools) for $5 from Walmart. It's capable of measuring from 0.5 to 5 ppm of free chlorine. ).5 is a bit high, but oh well.

So, the test: I placed 1mL of the 60g/L NaCl (salt) solution in the 2mL bottle and ran current through it for 2.5 minutes. This 1mL solution was then added to 5mL of deionized water which was already in the test kit. The resulting solution was 2-4ppm, 10-20 times too concentrated. Cool, I'm making free chlorine!

What this all means: The system works albeit at a slow rate. This is partially due to not using a fully-charged battery (the 9-volt was only putting out 6 volts) and not using a large enough sample of the salt water solution. My next step will be to rebuild the device using a 5 mL bottle, longer electrodes and a new battery. Then I'll have to test it on some pond water to see what happens. I'd also like to get some free-chlorine test strips rather than use the 3-way test kit, but Walmart was out of those. Anyone with a pool want to donate 6 test strips to help support this research? <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Massacre's idea of incorporating a multimeter into this setup is good, but somewhat beyond the scope of this project. I'm just trying to make the simplest system possible because, well, I'm lazy.

-Blast

Hey Blast, cool results! I just swapped out all of my fire alarm batteries and they seem to be in good shape (they are backup on an AC driven system). So I have plenty of experimental stock now; but I can't find a no.2 pencil to save my life. Anyway, I really like your idea of making a more permanent setup with the reaction "cup" drillilled for the nodes and fixing them with epoxy! Hacking done right. :-)

Oh, and the multimeter idea would be useful getting some information about the reaction while at home, but I didn't mean to keep it with the kit permanently. Any idea how big the reaction chamber is on the MIOX pen? I'm curious due to the fact that the same chamber/concentration can produce 1-4L of MIOX treatment from the same volume, so time is definitely a factor along with available salt. As I said earlier, I also wonder if they are altering the current. Also, you treated 5ml (total of 6ml) and got 2-4ppm - remember that on non-pure water you'll consume that chlorine... the test is for residual concentration.

Thanks for sharing your results.

Massacre,

I think someone said the MIOX unit delivers 2.75mL of solution. The difference between a treating 1L and 4L is the amount of time that the 2.75mL of solution is subjected to the charge. The more water you need to treat the longer you zap the 2.75mL solution which produces more "mixed oxidants" in that solution. The same volume of solution is used to treat different amounts of water, but the concentration of the solution changes.

It's silly, but when the indicator showed I had produced free chlorine I felt just like when I made fire for the first time using flint and steel. Talk about different ends of the technology spectrum... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I didn't produce enough to purify much water, but it's a start. Anyway, I should have time today to hack together BlastOx-2.0 and will let you know how it works.

Survival: It's not just banging rocks together anymore!

-Blast

Awesome. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Yeah, I knew that the volume of water really didn't change, but the length of time does (and that length is also based on salt concentration/conductivity). I didn't know it was 2.75ml. That gives a nice target for a home-brew setup. I might have to stop and get a pool test kit tonight. Oh, and some pencils in the back-to-school aisle. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

The best part is that anyone could make a field expedient unit from a toy! Maybe we can get Les Stroud to try it on his show.

So, when we get the conentration right, does anyone know where we can order some cryptosporidium spores, so the effectiveness can be tested?

All things being equal, if you get the concentrations right and have an actual MIOX pen for comparison I think that's unnecessary. The process is the same, so the mixed oxidants will be the same. The only potential difference here would be the carbon electrodes vs. the platinum covered titanium. I suppose that any given water supply has plenty of dissolved minerals that could give a few unwanted byproducts. But the sheer amount of carbon could potentially give off carbon tetrachloride, which is no good for the system. One way to eliminate any risk and get the same results would be to use gold or platinum coated nodes (many home entertainment cables are so coated).

I wouldn't really want to be testing with that stuff outside of a lab's controlled conditions and to get real results, it wouldn't be cheap. I'd rather take advantage of the research already done and simply copy the system on the cheap. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Oh, but that's not as much fun. I know, crypto is heavy- we could always use giardia. All we need is a volunteer with sick time left this year....

*looks around at the group* It's in the name of survival science. You'll even get a treat. *holds out a mainstay bar*

Switching to a new battery made a world of difference. This thing now produces A LOT of free chlorine species! On the downside these highly reactive products are attacking either the shrink-tubing or the epoxy I used and the resulting smell is pretty horrid. I think I need to rebuild the device by coating the electrodes in teflon tape. Or maybe just steal a pair of DW's gold earrings... <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

-Blast

One thing is for sure... they'll be disinfected! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I can't imagine it would harm them unless it's really thin plated gold. Solid gold or quality plating should work great without harm to your newfound electrodes. I think they make epoxy that's chem resistant, but I bet the shrink tubing is the culprit.

I just happen to have some platinum wire (Type B thermocouple) and I soldered it to a 9V battey cap like above. For a container, I used a mini travel size Scoop mouthwash container. I only have a HD 9V (not alkline) but I ran it for 30 minutes, and it bubbled on the positive lead the whole time. The resulting solution had more than 10 ppm chlorine (max reading on pool test strip)

To test the effectiveness, I added the solution to a glass of ice tea. I read a review of the MIOX somewhere, where it said it made ice tea clear, and removed the tea taste.

My tea ended up tasting slightly bleachy, and salty, and still very much like tea.

I'll get a fresh battery or use a power supply and try again.

I had much better results with a wall transformer.
I ran it for 15 minuts, and the mixture turned my ice tea from a dark tea color to something like miller lite.

It no longer tase like tea, but does taste like pool water.

The transformer is 9 v and 500ma.

So it looks like it's the current, and not the voltage that is needed.

I guess 2 lithum batteries can put out quite a bit more current than a nine volt.

Very interesting results, thanks for sharing.

Bill,

Excellent! Thank you for the follow-up. Using ice tea was brilliant! It makes sense that current is more important than voltage.

<Professor mode> Current measures the number of electrons passing through a system while voltage measure the force at which they are moving (roughly speaking). The more electrons you pump into the salt water the more oxidative products you will form, making it better at killing the wee lil' beasties. </Professor mode>

-Blast

Here is a link to the MIOX patent:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parse...amp;amp;RS=MIOX

Looks like the anode is ruthenium oxide coated titanium, and the cathode is titanium.