jack bailey
micro pur or aquamira
which of these two actually kills more stuff? which of these two would be the best buy?
and your thoughts on the steri pen??
I will never use filters again, so lets say we do not even mention those OK>?
jack bailey
If you’re not going to filter (though there are those of us who might wonder “why?”) then the answer is definitely the Steri-pen. Much more rapid than chemicals, no taste change, and even better at killing whatever may be present. Their only drawback is that you have to use wide-mouth water bottles of no more than a liter to treat in. Of course, you could just carry one as a treatment bottle and use Platys or a hydration bladder as many people do for water transport.
I wouldn’t take the easy way and skip treatment though. You’ll always have those who say (like lone wolf) “works for me”, which it has; up until now. But the statistics are out there on waterborne diseases and while the incidence is relatively low it is not insignificant. I don’t like chemicals and choose to use a gravity filter (what works for me) but the one thing I’ll always argue against is the “no filter” option. It’s playing Russian roulette with your health.
Strategic
Jack, the active ingredient in both is chlorine dioxide so I assumed they would be the same but this link talks about some of the differences:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/kaytadyn_micropur_mp1_purifier_tablets.html
Brian Osborne
Strategic makes a good point by giving another option. UV light is highly effective in clear water, and is commonly used in laboratories where ultra-pure water is needed. However, I personally wonder about the effectiveness of this method in turbid water, though have no data to support my concerns.
As fot the two options that you began this discussion with, they both use a chlorine salt to kill whatever is in the water. For that matter, an eye-dropper full of Clorox bleach will do the same job, for a lot less $$$$$. This is assuming that you still want to ingest whatever is still in the water, even though it’s dead or inactive.
bugleboy
Saying bleach (chlorine) is the same as chlorine dioxide is like saying oxygen is like water (dihydroxide). They are two VERY different things!
Chlorine is good for killing bacteria, and is recommend by the CDC for emergency situations since a lot of the water will like be contaminate with bateria. It’s not good at killing giardia unless the water tastes like the pool.
Chlorine dioxide (Aquamira and essentailly the MIOX by MSR) is very good at killing bateria, viruses and cysts (giardia).
Gravity
GAME 2005
Gravity
You guys are good. I have many years exp w/ water treatment(Municipal systems). The only concern I see is that cryptospiridium is very tough to deactivate with chlorine or Chlorine Dioxide. It takes a very long contact time. Your correct that clo2 is a “better” sanitizer, but do you want to rely on a battery operated device for such an important part of your trip?
As far as UV…you need enery to generate and if te water is “shadowe” in any way (Turbidity) it wont be effective. UV is excellant at deactivating crypto but needs close control…
If your not filtering, use thr Miox if you also bring a backup disinfectant (clorox) that you dont need battries to run. The key to pathogen reduction is the concentratin of the disinfectant, the time it has to “kill”, water temp and pH. The only good way to make sure you have potable water is to use a purification system (filtering AND disinfectant)…Hope this elps…sorry for typos…
JAy