Green design will save the world | Inhabitat. TED: Ideas worth spreading. Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology. Singularity Blog Covering Robots, Genetics, Stem Cells, Transhumanism, The Brain, The Future. South Africa Develops Nanotech ‘Tea Bag’ To Filter Water for Pennies (video. South Africa's newest water purification system uses nanotech inside a common tea bag.
Provide people cheap access to clean water and you could save billions of lives. South Africa may use tea bags to do just that. Researchers at Stellenbosch University’s Water Institute have developed a new water filtration system that uses activated carbon and nanofibers to quickly filter out pathogens. The carbon and nanofibers are placed in common tea bags and then fitted into a bottle. Fill the bottle with dubious water, install a filter, and drink. The ‘tea bag’ filtering system works thanks to the nanofibers contained within. South Africa’s Bureau of Standards is currently reviewing the nanofiber filter and accessing its viability.
I should mention that there are many other water purification systems out there, each with their own promises and limitations. A nanofiber filtering tea bag before and after use. [image credits: Hope Project/Stellenbosch University Water Institute] The LifeStraw makes dirty water clean. More than one billion people – one sixth of the world’s population - are without access to safe water supply.
At any given moment, about half of the world's poor are suffering from waterborne diseases, of which over 6,000 – mainly children – die each day by consuming unsafe drinking water. The world’s most prolific killer though is diarrhoeal disease from bacteria like typhoid, cholera, e. coli, salmonella and many others. Safe water interventions have vast potential to transform the lives of millions, especially in crucial areas such as poverty eradication, environmental upgradation, quality of life, child development and gender equality.
LifeStraw was developed as a practical response to the billions of people who are still without access to these basic human rights. View all The aptly-named LifeStraw is an invention that could become one of the greatest life-savers in history. Millions of people perish every year because they simply don’t have clean water to drink. Q1. Q2. Q3. Q4.