By: Cavid Abdullayev
Where Water is Found and the Percentage
Oceans 97.2%
Ice-Caps/Glaciers 2.0%
Groundwater 0.62%
Freshwater Lakes 0.009%
Inland Seas/Salt Lakes 0.008%
Atmosphere 0.001%
Rivers 0.0001%
Total 99.8381%
In carefully analyzing the above report, we can notice that 97% of water which is accumulated in the ocean is unavailable for human access: too salty for drinking, or using for industrial issues such as cleaning, dissolving substances and cooling. Albeit the remaining 3 percentage is freshwater, 2.5 percent of it is locked up in glaciers, in the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica, atmosphere, and soil. Finally, 0.5 percent is available for human use. But this is too small to meet the needs of an expanding population of the planet.
Water is not just a crucial component of food production, a healthy ecosystem, and human survival, but it’s also considered a major catalyst to the sustainable economic development of nations. In order to have a healthy lifestyle, every human being should have the right to have access to clean water. Due to the growing human population, competition for water is increasing such that many of the world’s major water resources are becoming depleted. According to the UN, there are 2.1 billion people who lack access to safely managed drinking water services and water scarcity already affects 4 out of every 10 people. Unfortunately, this number is increasing day by day and many areas of the world are experiencing this imbalance. In order to save one of the most precious resources on the planet and prevent it from pollutants and shortages, many solutions were submitted such as advancing technologies, supporting clean water initiatives, and improving sewage systems. In the following writing, we are going to analyze the functionality of one of these innovative solutions.
Theresa Dankovich, a researcher from the University of Carnegie Mellon owned and developed an idea of the concept intended to filter contaminated water. After years’ work, she introduced “Drinkable Book”. This book’s pages which consist of silver or copper nanoparticles have the capacity to kill bacteria and to remove the sludge from the water. Trials conducted in South Africa, Ghana, and Bangladesh where the majority of people die from waterborne diseases like typhoid, diarrhoeal illness and where poor sanitation is a state, showed that each paper removed 99.9 percent of bacteria. This level is comparable to the USA tap water resources. Even though during the filtering process small amounts of silver or copper leached into the water, these were well below safety limits.
To explain clearly, some major advantage of this book is that one page can potentially filter up to 100 liters of drinking water, filter one person's water supply for 4 years and also may provide a cheap, sustainable solution for communities suffering from severe sanitation problems and water-related diseases. And also there is information printed in the pages which teach proper sanitation rules and how to use the “drinkable book’’. By being the cheapest option available in the market, it costs pennies to produce. Besides that, the purification process is simple as it is and only demands three simple steps to complete:
"All you need to do is tear out a paper, put it in a simple filter holder and pour water into it from rivers, streams, wells, etc and out comes clean water - and dead bacteria as well," Dankovich told BBC news.
Step 1: tear out a pre-perforated page — each will filter 100 liters of water
Step 2: slot the page into the base of the custom filter box
Step 3: replace the pressure plate and pour water through
The "drinkable book" has now reached two main goals - showing that it works in the lab, and on real water sources. Theresa Dankovich now hopes to increase the production of the book. ‘If things keep going well, I’d like to scale it up and not have to make these papers by hand because I’m starting to make a lot of them,’ she said.
Water Is Life. Save Water, Save Life.
References
A “Drinkable Book” that filters water and saves lives. Retrieved from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJLMwHXUJFQ
Bug-Killing book pages clean murky drinking water. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33954763
Bureau of Reclamation's Mid-Pacific Region, water facts-worldwide water supply. Retrieved from: https://www.usbr.gov/mp/arwec/water-facts-ww-water-sup.html
Comments