Get Clean Water from a Drinkable Book

Water-borne diseases continue to pose a huge threat to health in developing countries around the world, and the Drinkable Book is a novel way of reducing the danger.

Dr. Theresa Dankovich from Carnegie Mellon developed the technology behind the drinkable book, which works to kill microbes by filtering dirty water through a thick sheet of paper containing silver nanoparticles. During lab and field tests, the technology has been proven to be highly antibacterial, and meets U.S. EPA guidelines.

Dr. Dankovich is working in conjunction with WATERisLIFE to distribute the books to vulnerable communities in Ghana, Haiti, Kenya and India. Each page contains information on why water should be filtered, serving as an educational tool as well as a potentially life-saving water purifier.

According to test results, each page can clean 100 liters of water, and one book could supply clean water for one person for as long as four years. However, there are concerns that although bacteria are killed, protozoa and viruses may remain. For that reason it seems the Drinkable Book is a great first step in the struggle to provide clean water around the world, but there remains more work to be done.

Encouragingly for the Drinkable Book, it is cheap to produce and also educates users about water purification. With further research and financial backing, the project could play an important role in improving water sanitation.