Abstract
Providing water for 7.4billion people is a staggering challenge, not to mention the overwhelming demand for water that is safe to drink. Today more than 1.1billion people living in emerging countries need safe drinking water. Additionally those countries with compromised drinking water systems and the 200million people affected by natural disasters each year suggest the problem is catastrophic. Ironically, bad water is as much a product of overpopulation and climate change as it is from technology. Anthropogenic chemicals, engineered antibiotics, excessive hormone use, and vast areas of natural arsenic pollution coupled with microbial contamination require special media for purification. The enormity of household filters available can be difficult to sort out. This chapter is divided into three parts: (1) historical accounts of water technology; (2) the science behind elemental purification materials (bone char, charcoal, clay, copper, and silver); and (3) an evaluation of the common household purification technologies.
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