All,

One pill of Micropur is good for a quart of water, can you split the pill if you need to 'purify' only 2 cups worth of water? Or do you need to have the full pill to do its job?

Kris

Yes you can, and no you shouldn't..

- splitting the tablet exactly in half is difficult, especially in the field. And you'll have to take the tablet out of it's package in order to break it.

- a 1 liter water-bottle is cheap..

- Another brand of tablet namely Potable Aqua works with 1 tablet for 500ml of water.

- In an emergency and for short-term, you can use 1 micropur-tablet on half a liter of water.

Jim,

Thanks for that info. Reason I was asking was that i have some zip lock bags that would hold about 2 cups of water each in my edc psk. Was curious if it would work ok.


Again, thanks for the info.

Kris

Most tablets I've seen have a fairly strict warning against handling them with bare hands and recommend getting them from the wrapper to the water ASAP. Makes splitting them up seem hazardous.

Hacksaw,

good point...

thanks for that.

Kris

Here is the explanation from the ETS website (water purification section, Micropur review):

"We also inquired about the safety of using the tablet at higher concentrations, in other words, in less than a liter/quart of water, as might be the situation with an improvised water container in a survival situation. We were told that this could be acceptable for short term use. A higher concentration (less water) may result in unpleasant taste or odor. If someone has an adverse reaction to chlorine dioxide in general (which is a rare condition), this risk would increase (similar to the case with those having adverse iodine reactions). However, in an emergency situation, no negative health issues would be expected."

Water purification Section from ETS

From actual use I would say 1 tablet for 1/2 liter of water would make it very unpleasant to drink. I find the chorine aftertaste quite noticeable at the regular strength. Doubling the dosage IMO would make it very hard to swallow.

Adam

Wel those survival-rations don't taste like a 5-star dinner either, but they do keep you alive...

IOW: sometimes you've just got no choice..

Obviously you are correct. In a survival situation a chlorine aftertaste might be the least of your problems. But I would test it out first. Any survival gear needs to be tested. Maybe I’m very sensitive to the chlorine maybe others are not. But at least I know.

This is no different than testing out a new knife you bought. It might be more fun to go out and make a figure 4 trap with your new knife but all of your PSK components should be personally tested and evaluated.

Adam