Researcher creates 'drinkable book' to provide clean water

Sunday, September 6, 2015, 4:33 PM - An innovative creation could make clean drinking water accessible for all.

U.S. researcher Theresa Dankovich’s “drinkable book” is a new approach to providing clean drinking water to people living in poverty.

The pages are embedded with nanoparticles of silver or copper that kill bacteria as water passes through, the BBC reports. The text -- available in both English and the local language -- informs readers about how to clean drinking water and the importance of filtering.

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Using the book is quite straightforward: tear a page out, place it in a filter holder, and pour dirty water through. Bacteria absorbs the silver and copper ions, removing 99 per cent of bacteria present in the water.

The filters have met all U.S. EPA guidelines for bacteria removal in drinking water production.

”The filters can last a couple of weeks, even up to a month, so the entire book could provide the tools to filter clean water for about a year,” the organization’s website notes.

Dankovich developed the idea while working on her doctor’s thesis at Montreal’s McGill University. She is now a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.

SOURCES: TIME | BBC | Drinkable Book

Thumbnail image courtesy of The Drinkable Book