" If you're desperate, and need of water goo ahead and drink even if it's not safe", as the Wilderness Survival merit badge book says. This is of course only for the most desperate times, when you have no ways of purifying water(although I know this will never happen to me after learning all the useful hints from y'all), but what if the water has chemicals in it? Is there a ways of removing practicly all chemicals from water?

unless there is a very heavy contaimination, the chemicals shouldn't pose a problem in a short term situation. it's long time exposure to chemicals that causes dangers. but still i wouldn't want to drink it.

But you could improvise a carbon filter. Charcoal is a form of carbon, so you could filter your water through some charcoal to remove the chemical parcially. Wenn you making one of those you might as well add other layer in the filter to clean the water further up. ( see places like these: http://therangerdigest.com/Tips___Tricks...fying_water.htm )

There are others here that know far more about this than I do but based on what I have learned from previous discussions and research on the subject I believe that your best bet is charcoal filtering and/or the evaporation/condensation method. Evaporation/condesation methods such as solar stills are often difficult or impractical to set up in a manner that would yield enough water to justify the effort involved. Charcoal filtering is easier to improvise than most evaporation/condesation rigs but still easier said than done, so practicing before youre in a situation would be extremely beneficial.

It would seem to me that in many situations clean water is easier to find then most may suspect. Dew is an excellent source of clean water as long as you're not pulling it off of poisonous plants. Rain water is also a great source of clean water provided you're not in an area known to have excessive air pollution. A variety of non-poisonous plants are also a source of clean water.

Tongue-in-cheek-reply.

Yes, get rid of "civilized" people!

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I have heard of sand filters, but don't know anything about them. My first thought is that they would just be used for filtering debris, rather than toxins. Yes?

Sue

I heard once that the ash from a wood fire works well to chealate bacteria, organice molecules and dirt. Add ash to water bottle, shake well. let stand. Either filter out the ash with a rag or let it settle and decant off the water.

Can anyone confirm this to be true?

i THINK i'VE HEARD OF THAT DONE. i'LL LOOK IT UP ON INTERNET

neuronboy No that won't do. That is how you make lye by running water through wood ashes. Now I don't know about you but I treally wouldn't want to drink lye even if it is greatly deluted.

A sand filter is suppose to be a way to remove most solids from water. And charcoal does remove most chemical compounds. So you can make a several layered filter combining both. I would still boil or better yet distill the result just to be safe.

The best charcoal to use is activated charcoal. The difference is the charcoal is heated to high temps. under pressure with steam. Something like 900 degrees. Much beyond the capacity of most. What this does is somehow opens up the charcoal to expose much more surface area. The surface is what captures the contaminants.

Using regular charcoal would require much more that activated. So it would need to be changed out more frequently.

How about a solar still?

-john

With ash you can cure green olives. As other poster mentioned, it is a highly alcali stuff so it works like lye.

Oh, yes, and olives processed with ash are yum yum !!

I don't see how I could get activated charcoal in a survival situtation. Is this fish aquarium charcoal? BBQ charcoal? Or something else?

Sue

Aquarium charcoal, and oddly enough, the charcoal that's sold as a garden additive... but definitely NOT BBQ charcoal, some if not most brands contain chemicals to make them burn better/easier to light, NOT the kind of chemicals you want in your drinking water.

Troy

Making Lye
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_ashlye.html
http://www.endtimesreport.com/making_lye.html

Learned this when learning to make soap.



No in a survival situation it is probably to late to get activated charcoal. And much to hard to make on your own. Aquarium charcoal is activated charcoal and is used to remove contamination from the tank water. You can also buy it at most drug stores. It is often given to people that have swallowed poison to absorb the poison.

You can make your own charcoal it just won't be activated. It still can be used the same way it just isn't as good because it has less surface area to be effective. If using homemade charcoal for either purpose it is best to gring it as fine as possable. Hard woods tend to make the best quality charcoal. Although the majority of activated charcoal commercially produced comes fom coconut shells.

Activated Charcoal

http://www.charcoal.uk.com/Activated_carbon.htm
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/NationalList/TAPReviews/ActivatedCarbon.pdf

Homemsde water filters

http://www.covenantacres.com/HomemadeWaterFilter.html
http://eesc.orst.edu/AgComWebFile/EdMat/EM8642.pdf

One of my fun skills as a communications engineer was that of developing hardware, software, and techniques for remote monitoring and alarming all kinds of things and thus getting into places that normal civilians are not allowed. That experience along with a relative’s life long practice of creating delightfully delicious distilled spirits has made me aware of the dangers of blindly accepting certain procedures as the total answer to a problem.

The Northwest is known for its clean soft water from mountain snow melt. However, when the reservoirs are low or muddy, wells are used to supplement and reduce the turbidity. Generally these wells are located near ancient or active water ways. These water ways are also the location of existing or long gone industrial sites. Sites that have been subject to man made chemicals seeping into the water table for many years. These chemicals are difficult to remove from the water and are usually not easily identified by taste or smell. Some, not all, communities with chemically polluted well water, discreetly spray their water, at the well sites, into the air in chambers and ignite the more volatile gases before it enters the normal water treatment process.

From my now departed relative, I learned that depending of the mix of grains or “other” organic biomass of the mash the initial output of the distillation process are poisonous esters. These esters are spilled off and not used by the “honest and knowledgeable” distillers / distributers. Again, the percentage spilled off depends on the biomass makeup. Distillation is also the process of recovering gold from gold mercury amalgam. The mercury is boiled off and if you want to keep your sanity and health, is condensed and collected under water. Caution, when trying this technique at home, retort explosions are common and usually mildly fatal. There are many lakes in the Northwest that are organically and naturally polluted with mercury. Read your State’s Fish and Game Regulations for a list of lakes with fish containing high percentages of mercury. Pregnant woman please take note, the state says you can’t eat as much mercury as the rest of the population!

When you blindly use a still to purify water, your results depend on the water quality you put in it. Remember the old computer adage, “Garbage in equals garbage out.” I am not saying that distillation does not work. What I am saying is that “It is not a panacea for what we have done to our water.” You can modify the still to reduce these toxins but it takes a bit more knowledge, skill, and hardware. Something that will be lacking in the survival situation. But you are probably immune since many of you are drinking this water currently through your communities water system.

Sad but true! <img src="/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />