Local water purification system could save lives here, around world
Visiting dignitaries from around the world came to Hanover Park Tuesday to drink water out of a retention pond.
A fish jumped in the brown, turbid pond as a hose sucked water through a filter and pumped out crystal-clear H2O.
The water seemed to have a remaining whiff of its source, but betrayed no taste of it as visitors toasted with styrofoam cups, quaffed their drinks and found it tasted as pure as any tap water.
"I'm impressed," said Boniface Unachukwu, representing a prominent chief from Nigeria. "This is going to be very useful."
One billion people - 1 out of every 6 - do not have access to a safe source of drinking water, the lack of which kills 3,900 children a day, especially in Africa and Asia. The United Nations goal is to halve that by 2015.
The new SOS Mobile Water Purifier first runs the water through sand filters to remove solid particles, then through a proprietary Polyhalex resin made of iodinated granules to kill any virus or bacteria, and finally through carbon filters to remove organics and bad tastes and odors.
Currently, many villages in Africa and Asia use unpurified drinking water from ponds and streams. Water can also be purified by treating it with chlorine or a diluted bleach formula, but that may leave it tasting like pool water.
The new system, manufactured by Calco Ltd. of Hanover Park, can be mounted on a small trailer and pulled by a pickup truck to a water source to produce 15 to 20 gallons a minute. Each unit can also be equipped to take salt out of salt water, and costs $40,000 to $60,000.
A unit will be sent to India to use in the Braj area, where many pilgrims travel to small villages and need fresh water.
Tuesday's demonstration was held up when the unit could not pull water 15 feet up from the pond surface to the banks, but that was solved by using a second pump.
The marketers of the system, House of Mohan Corp. of Washington, D.C. hope to also sell the system for disaster relief.
in the U.S.
The Illinois Department of Public Health uses bottled water for disaster relief, such as during flooding in the state this past spring, spokeswoman Kelly Jakubek said.