Solar Bottle solar-powered water purification bottle kills germs dead

Water purification is generally an energy-intensive, wasteful operation, but designers Alberto Medo and Francisco Gomez Paz have done a neat end-run around those problems with their Solar Bottle, a portable water bottle that purifies water using the sun. The bottle, which holds just over a gallon of water, uses a purification process called SODIS that takes six hours to kill off a whole host of baddies, including Oregon Trail favorites cholera, typhoid and dysentery. Just a concept for now, but the design has been well-received and won several awards, so hopefully someone will step up and take it into production soon.

[Via Inhabitat]

[LordFarkward @ Sep 3rd 2007 6:28AM]

so can i one day take like 2-3 of these to the dessert, pee into one, leave it out in the sun, and be 'self sufficient' in terms of fluids?

[zed @ Sep 3rd 2007 6:54AM]

To the dessert?Dude stay here!we can open a bar,the customer toilets will be connected to this thing and then straight to the beer barrels.We will be rich!

[Alexander @ Sep 3rd 2007 8:46AM]

You can already drink your own urine. Urine is sterile, you don't need to sterilize it any further.

Oh, you meant FILTER... You idiot.

[scott @ Sep 3rd 2007 10:38AM]

I'm not sure, but I think that you BOTH just spelled "desert" wrong.

[Gus @ Sep 3rd 2007 9:41AM]

whoa alexander, way to be an ass man. i'm sure you never make any mistakes in life, sheesh...

commenters in engadget are getting more immature by the day... luckily school starts soon so these kids won't be trolling here as much

[tomb @ Sep 3rd 2007 7:13AM]

Don't Buurpweiser have a patent on that already?

[Brian Feinzimer @ Sep 3rd 2007 7:13AM]

Mmmm nothing like a bottle of HOT solar water...they forget people like cold water...just a thought.

[Luke @ Sep 3rd 2007 7:30AM]

Ehm... supposing you let it cool down before drinking, maybe you're not at first concerned about water temperature if your aim is to kill off baddies like cholera :D

Just an opinion.

PS: the correct name is Alberto Meda.

Bye guys!

Luke

[Kree @ Sep 3rd 2007 7:42AM]

This looks like something that would be (literally) a lifesaver in countries without access to water purification systems or even electricity.

[Wwhat @ Sep 3rd 2007 6:49PM]

Hmm, but doesn't global warming predict a lot of clouds? always a snag isn't there.

[Kree @ Sep 3rd 2007 9:17PM]

Let's hope that nuclear winter cancels it out then.

[Rockit99 @ Sep 3rd 2007 7:46AM]

Dessert? I think you're confusing sweet puddings served after dinner with a dry arid place on land...

Anything to achieve potable water for a huge proportion of the planet that don't have access to it is a Very Good Thing.

Although doubtless some big corporation (Pharmas?) will buy the patent and, if it ever sees the light of day, sell the bottle for an exorbitant profit. Just look at HIV drugs for an example...

[tom2 @ Sep 3rd 2007 12:24PM]

Another overengineered save-the-world idea :-)
People are already doing that by just using plain PET bottles widely available even in the 3rd world... check www.sodis.ch for the no-frills version.

[Rollo Martins @ Sep 3rd 2007 11:29AM]

Actually this is not a very new idea, but just a way to make money out of something that can be done a lot cheaper. Take a PET bootle, fill it with water, put it to the sun. And it will be drinkable after a few hours. No need for sophisticated equipment. See http://archiv.ethlife.ethz.ch/articles/sciencelife/EAWAGMillenium3.html (German article about research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology).

[XenoX101 @ Sep 3rd 2007 1:49PM]

Doesn't boiling water make it drinkable anyway? Where's the technology aspect?

[Ben Swain @ Sep 4th 2007 7:30AM]

6 hours for a gallon of water? My MSR sweetwater will give me a gallon in a couple of minutes. It's also significantly smaller. This is a highly inefficient "technology" Aqua Mura is leaps and bounds better, mix a couple of chemicals and wait 20 minutes. Does this thing even handle giardia? I don't think the sun will kill it, and that's one of the biggest concerns with bad water.

Whoever is developing this technology needs to take a walk through their local outdoors store to check out much better technologies already out there.

Maybe this is supposed to be for third world countries, but is a villager going to sit and wait 6 hours for a gallon of water?

[toyotaboy @ Sep 4th 2007 2:06PM]

Umm.. correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't this concept been invented thousands of years ago? All you need to do is boil all the impurities out for 10 minutes, stick it in a sealed container, and bury it in the ground (to cool off). Doesn't anyone watch survivor? I mean granted this is a little more techy and simple, but how about creating a solar oven that unfolds, boils the water, then a release valve that transfers the pure water into an already buried, sealed container, which keeps it from being exposed to air during the entire process until your ready to drink.