MIT engineer creates very low tech pine wood water filter

jessieg
reply to post by Elton

 

Yeah, I hope no one actually needs this any time soon. It is good to know that it is quite easy to filter water. Just stock up on some tubing. I don't know if you need the clamp thing.

Also, if you have any cilantro, add that to the tube too. It will make the water taste like cilantro, but it will remove heavy metals.
cilantro filter

It was my understanding that Dr. Yoshiaki Omura was the one to discover Cilantro for heavy metal removal. It originated during research to cure alzheimer's, the idea being it was caused by a buildup of heavy metal in the body. It turned out this was not true but during his research he discovered eating Cilantro would remove heavy metal during urination. It has worked for me and I can now eat seafoods that would have otherwise made me very ill. Pineapple, greek yogurt, and Cilantro did the trick in a very tasty smoothie. A few of these and it's shrimp city.

Would this filter take carer of the Gardia virus I wonder?

reply to post by WatchRider


No. You can still get beaver fever.

reply to post by jessieg


Interesting, and handy to remember thanks.

Another method along a similar idea;

Get a shallow container, fill with water to be filtered and dig up a couple of wild fleshy plants being careful not to destroy the roots as much as possible.

Put the roots into the water, and seal the open top with plastic bag wrapped around the stem of the plant or plants in the water.

Take another large clear plastic bag, and put it over the plant, covering all of it's leaves and tie it off around the upper stem, angle one of the corners of the bag downwards so it forms a kind of well for collecting water.

As the plant takes up the water you want to filter through it's roots and tissues, it will sweat it out from the leaves quite rapidly, due to being in a sealed and very humid plastic bag, the water will be pure and drinkable with no bacteria or anything nasty in it.

Or you can just do bag over the leaves trick while the plant is still growing in the ground..it will still make water for you to drink, collected in the bottom angled corner of the bag.

excellent thread
there are prolly different types of wood or woody plants that might be better then pine
also even if this is just used to pre filter

uv light will kill biotic baddies in the water, as will boiling


eta
hey, good one MrX

Elton

PhoenixOD
reply to post by Elton

 

And they did not even try to patent their 'invention',

It would be not possible to patent something that at its core just uses a material that anyone can obtain and use.

Yes you can (well at least in many countries), when you put things together in a non-obvious way it becomes an invention.

Technically, if you used a glass tube, then that bit of wood would act as a cork.

reply to post by stormcell


technically if you used a glass tube the water will bass through the little tubes in the wood
the wood will swell and the glass tube will break
pretty sure anyway

cork isn't constructed the same...its not like a normal water channel like the pine branch , cork is bark
www.enologyinternational.com...

reply to post by Danbones

I think what was meant was stopper and not the material "cork".

You would just have to take into account the swelling or maybe pre-soak.

VoidHawk

If they increased the length of the plastic tube there would be more water pressure, and that might increase the amount of water cleaned.

Or simply stacking them up, like a tube christmas tree....

interupt42
Very cool, but If it could only filter out salt from ocean water.

While the pores in sapwood are too big to filter out salts,

web.mit.edu...

Filter would not be very efficient in filtering out salt from sea water. A simple solution for that would be distilling. All you'd need to make an effective distiller is a basin of salt water (like sea water or urine), some plastic foil, a cup, a stone and some sunlight. Place the large basin in the ground under direct sunlight on a warm day. Place the empty cup in the middle of that basin and cover both with the plastic wrap. Place a stone right above the empty cup and wait for a few hours until the center cup is filled with fresh distilled water ready to drink. The excess salt is also useful for binding water in your body, preventing excessive perspiration (but be gentle, too much salt and you're back to square one) and for more tasty cooking.

reply to post by MysterX


Thats a very neat simple idea