Water is essential for survival and a necessary item in every emergency supply kit.You can survive longer without food than you can without water. Water is a transparent and nearly colorless chemical substance that is the main constituent of Earth’s streams, lakes and oceans, and the fluid of most living organism.
Water has been shown to be formed when anything that contains two moles of hydrogen atoms combust to form 18 grams of water when combusted completely in an oxygen-rich environment. Its chemical formula is H2O, meaning that its molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, that are connected by covalent bonds.
The lifestraw
The Life straw is a device that filters about 99.9% of germs in water, it makes it possible to drink from lakes,rivers,puddles etc. The LifeStraw removes at least of 99.99999% of waterborne bacteria and can filter up to 1000L of water.
Throughout the world, an estimated 884 million people still do not have access to clean sources of water. According to the LifeStraw manufacturers, the device contains no chemicals or batteries and makes it possible to drink safely from any river, lake or puddle.
Construction of the lifestraw
The LifeStraw is a plastic tube 31 cm long and 3 cm in diameter.Water that is drawn up through the straw first passes through hollow fibres that filter water particles down to 0.2 µm across, using only physical filtration methods and no chemicals. The entire process is powered by suction, similar to using a conventional drinking straw, and filters up to 1000 litres of water.While the initial model of the filter did not remove Giardia lamblia,LifeStraw now removes a minimum of 99.9% of waterborne protozoan parasites including Giardia and Cryptosporidium.
Note that the standard LifeStraw is ineffective in filtering viruses, chemicals, salt water, and heavy metals.
A life straw is a device that allows a person to pull water through the straw and cleanse it of 95 percent of contaminants.
“The manufacturer’s aim is to help residents prepare for an event where there might be out of water for a week or two. They need to learn to provide water for themselves,” he said. “You can do that by storage and purification. It allows you to treat contaminated water.”
To conclude, safe drinking water is essential to humans and other forms even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients. Water plays an important role in the world economy. Access to safe drinking water has improved over the last decades in almost every part of the world, but approximately one billion people still lack access to adequate sanitation. A report, issued in November 2009, suggests that by 2030, in some developing regions of the world, water demand will exceed supply by 50%.