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="" />