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#68398 - 06/29/06 02:42 AM help with water purification idea...
MedicineMan Offline
Newbie

Registered: 06/17/06
Posts: 43
Loc: upper east TN
I have recieved my Ritter personal survival kit (and knife, and am already reading 'Deep Survival'). All three products seem worthy and I love the idea of the Gerber nursing bags for water storage.
My querry is concerning water purification and I wanted to throw an idea at the group here. As a frequent backpacker I use Aqua-Mira and over 35 years of backpacking have used many types of filters, chlorine, iodine, etc.
In the personal survival kit the directions mention the Katahdyn tablets....I've used these and like this approach except I dont like the shelf life (Aqua-Mira suffers from this too) and I dont like the fact that I am somewhat limited in the tot. number of tablets I can carry within the confines of the survival kit (boy I wish I could use the storage space inside the whistle!)
OK luck or providence would have a small nitroglycerin bottle next to a larger bottle that I had purchased from Chris Nyerges many years ago....the larger bottle holds iodine crystals and the supernatant liquid in the bottle is super saturated water with iodine....a capsul of this fluid is poured into a quart of water and allowed to sit for 30 mins, longer depending on temperature of course.
So the idea came together, why not place pure iodine crystals into the very small nitroglycerin bottle?
The small nitroglycerin bottles I'm talking about hold almost exactly 5ml (but that is completely full)...minus 1 or 2 ml's leaves room for the iodine crystals and decanting of the supersaturated solution into the small cap.
These bottles are glass and the cap has a teflon seal, both of which are required not only for nitroglycerin but also iodine to prevent sublimation.
The real beauty of this is that the small bottle will fit into the Ritter Personal Survival kit and the biggest advantage I can see is that the crystals can keep producing the saturated iodine solution for far far longer than the number of Katadyn tablets I could store in the same amount of space.
Of course iodine is not for everyone, not for the pregnant, those with thyroid disorders or those allergic to iodine or shellfish.....
So please tear up this idea! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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#68399 - 06/29/06 02:51 AM Re: help with water purification idea...
ironraven Offline
Cranky Geek
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 09/08/05
Posts: 4642
Loc: Vermont
Some of us do something like this with iodine tablets in 5/8 dram lab vials. I never thought about using crystals; what size is your nitro vial? The vials I use are about the same size a .45ACP or 10mm Auto cartridge. (Or about as big around as an AA battery, about 2/3s as long.)
_________________________
-IronRaven

When a man dare not speak without malice for fear of giving insult, that is when truth starts to die. Truth is the truest freedom.

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#68400 - 06/29/06 02:55 AM Re: help with water purification idea...
MedicineMan Offline
Newbie

Registered: 06/17/06
Posts: 43
Loc: upper east TN
yes, about the same size as a .45 ACP round...that big bottle with the small amount of crystals in the bottom, it has lasted for many years....Well i'm glad the principle is being applied, now I'm in the search for iodine crystals, will see if Nyerges still can sell them.
Probably should mention the cautions using the crystals, the no. 1 being you cannot swallow them, so when decanting the saturated solution out of the bottle into the cap for measuring the dose to be added to the water container you should look and make sure no crystals got out.
The tablets though stil limit you to a certain number of them, with the crystals the number of saturated vials of fluid they can produce is huge.


Edited by MedicineMan (06/29/06 03:24 AM)

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#68401 - 06/29/06 04:00 AM Re: help with water purification idea...
ironraven Offline
Cranky Geek
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 09/08/05
Posts: 4642
Loc: Vermont
But not as idiot proof. It's a toss up, one option gives you more, one option gives you harder to screw up.

Having been hypothermic, heatstroked and deydrated (not all three at once, obviously), I can say that anything beyond "2 tablets per quart" can get sketchy. I'm not alive becuase I'm skilled. I'm just too petty to give the skinny fellow with the sythe the satisfaction. :P

So I guess I should ask, if you have a PSP, this iodine solution, and either a milk bag or a Nalgene bottle, how does one keep the crystals out of your side of this? Filter?
_________________________
-IronRaven

When a man dare not speak without malice for fear of giving insult, that is when truth starts to die. Truth is the truest freedom.

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#68402 - 06/29/06 05:21 AM Re: help with water purification idea...
AyersTG Offline
Veteran

Registered: 12/10/01
Posts: 1272
Loc: Upper Mississippi River Valley...
>> a capsul of this fluid is poured into a quart of water and allowed to sit for 30 mins, longer depending on temperature <<

Should work fine - the commercial equivalent is Polar Pure.

I used iodine treatment for decades. Doesn't fare well in standardized test against oocystic organisms like giardia (hard to kill chemically) and crypto (extremely hard to kill chemically). The "good" news is that a significant fraction of the population suffers no ill effects from those critters - perhaps as high as 40%. The "bad" news is if you're in the wrong part of the population, giardia can be very uncomfortable and crypto might even kill you rather more directly than giardia.

I've never had any symptoms and there is no doubt that I've drunk a LOT of water known to contain giardia. Pick your reasons - you have to roll your own dice. There are lab results that demonstrate that iodine WILL eventually kill giardia and even crypto, but the wait time is very very long (8 hours or maybe a little longer to be sure with crypto).

I can't use iodine any more because my wife has a (very minor) thyroid condition now. Chlorine dioxide tablets and/or Katadyn Guide filter are what I use now. Take a look at the MSR MIOX - it works extremely well and is not all that large. Or maybe the Steri-Pen. Paramedic Pete tested these a while back in his lab and confirmed the claims. I would feel a little more confident with the MIOX, personally.

There are simple methods for avoiding the oocsytic critters - like going shallow in deep calm water (they sink). That's the practice in places like the Boundary Waters region between the US and Canada. Extend that fact into a little care and cleverness with multiple containers (at least 2) and you should be able to significantly improve the odds in your favor. Iodine works great on everything else.

HTH,

Tom

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#68403 - 06/29/06 07:30 AM Re: help with water purification idea...
MedicineMan Offline
Newbie

Registered: 06/17/06
Posts: 43
Loc: upper east TN
in the large bottle i've been carrying for years (this bottle is smaller round than a quarter and almost 3 inches tall) you simply fill with water, wait until it saturates (and can be left sitting saturating ad infinitum), take off the top, pour the fluid into the cap, then dump the capful into the nalgene or milk bag.....
the crystals are heavy and on the bottom so i've never come close to getting them even into the cap.
Polar Pur (the product) has a filter built into the top just for this but i'm betting you could use a bit of cloth if you were unsure.
My next step once I get my hands on the iodine crystals is to see how much the tiny lid off the nitroglycerin tabs compares to the one on the old bottle i've got--ration wise that is.

One thing i've noticed over the years is that the glass bottle full of this iodine solution will stain a plastic bag that it sits in, so not wanting to stain the contents of the personal survival kit i'm thinking I may dip the entire nitro bottle in was to seal it or better yet paint it with fingernail polish.

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