super eazy and enviromentaly freindly bike tire water purification

Imagine youre riding youre bike far out there, way away from civilization youre bike breaks and youre stranded. Just as the cowboys canibalized their hourses you must canabalis youre bike.

Step 1 Material's

(1) bike tube
(1) pocket knife 
some fine sand
a handfull of ash
some pebbles
some fishing line
be sure to cleanit out in a water source.

Comments

[nekko fox]

I read this and enjoyed it up until I saw "wood ash" instead of "charcoal" and I thought "Oh my". Water that is seeped through wood ash creates lye, which can be harmful or fatal if swallowed. Both wet lye and dry lye solutions are highly caustic and may cause chemical burns, permanent injury or scarring, and blindness. But, as dchall8 and golfer12345, if you simply boil it (bring to a rolling boil), you should be good to drink (212 degrees and all the organisms will be dead). However, a grit filter of rocks, gravel and sand will certainly remove the large debris that make most water murky. Also, if you DID want to chemically treat your water with bleach, two drops per quart will sufficient. Now, I understand this is meant for when you are away from a ready access of charcoal and bleach, but it's good to learn from the wisdom of others and expand on it. Of course, considering this is a survival situation, I should think that if you are traveling so far away from civilization that survival must come into question, one must of course take precautions and that may include taking an eyedropper of bleach or a means of heating water.

[abstracted]

1st thing i noticed was the instruction " be sure to cleanit out in a water source."...if you are CLEANING it out...isnt your water supply already clean??????

[imaplugger]

I don't think any of you read the criteria for the reasoning. You are out far away from any where. You talk like you can just stop in a store and buy some charcoal or some bleach or some pea gravel or whatever. if you could do that, why not just buy some water.
Burdockwing, you are on the right track, keep up the good work.

[a splosion]

Can you put up a video of it working?

[Fypsigon]

I would not drink this water as parts of the ash will dissolve in the water and produce an alkaline solution, like lye.... Or will it wash out?

[burdockwing]

it will just wash out so be sure to ruin water through it a couple times.

[Kozz]

Indeed, I was about to say the same thing -- what you want is *charcoal*, not ash. You're right in that lye is created by leaching water through wood ash. Charcoal is what you want (partially unburned black bits / chunks), not the fine gray ash.

[dchall8]

...and not briquettes either. Those are often treated with chemicals to make them burn better. Charcoal is made from wood that has had all the aromatic gasses driven off by high heat without oxygen.

[BtheBike]

One would think that store bought "charcoal" would't be good for this app but that question is often asked by laymen "can i just use kingston charcoal" =) To that I concur, "NO".

[Kozz]

Absolutely. And not to pile on, but it is more accurate to say that running water through a sand & charcoal will filter out particles and some chemicals, but it will not necessarily catch microorganisms. To do that, you'll want to bring your water to a boil. I know there are debates online about this, but I believe that a boil is a boil -- it doesn't have to be for a full minute, for 10 minutes, or any such thing. Most microorganisms present won't survive beyond 180F, so 212F is simply insurance. If you get it to boil, you're good to go. Be sure to let it cool before drinking, of course.

[BtheBike]

Correct . 160-180 for 7-10 mins is good to kill parasites and bacteria for drinking water. For totally sterile water (treating wounds..etc ) boiling is ideal .

I saw a tutorial on using the suns uv to kill micro orgs in a clear plastic bottle but it was in a foreign language . One would still need to filter that water .

[ComplacentBard]

Shouldn't the finest filter be put in the tube first so that the water goes through it last? I'm pretty sure that you would want to filter the largest things first and get progressively smaller.

Good 'ible though!

[burdockwing]

no because then all the finest sand and stuff will just fall out

[pmartel]

@BTheBike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection

[dchall8]

Could be that filters are the future of water purifiers!?!?

[Mr. Rig It]

Just suck it up and drink that dank dirty water before filtration. Boil? BAH! Filter? BAH! Ok I'm done being silly. Good use of materials and a great idea. Keep turning out theses great ideas :-)

[dchall8]

You are making filtered water. Filtering is a necessary step toward purifying water, but it is not the end of the process. If you boiled the filtered water for 10 minutes and put a drop or two of chlorine bleach in it, it would be more safe to drink.

[golfer12345]

you actually only need to bring water to just boiling point to kill all organisms not 10 minutes and you wouldn't need the chlorine bleach after you boil it
http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/how-long-do-you-need-to-boil-water/