'From Poop to Potable'

Some electrical wire I purchased from Lockheed at auction cost them 22-dollars an INCH. Used in the orbiters dueing the Discovery / Endeavor refit.

With a budget like that a waste recovery system with ALARM SHUTDOWN is feasible. But a Mother Fletcher's do-it-yourself ahh....ummm..."recombiner" of black waste is not showing uo I my crystal ball. One for gray water perhaps, but with OZONE sterilization TDS and ammonia detection alarm shutdown. What lives in your bowel can kill you if it gets loose in your body - like E-Coli 409C.

Years ago (like 30 give or take 10) in Detroit there was a demonstration of such a device.. Turns out they mixed like 1 glass of sewage with something on the order of 100 Gallons of fresh water (or more) and that is how they did it.

Not really purification (You can purify but I am not sure how good a job outside of small amounts in a lab) but dilution.

I wonder if that is what is happening here.

"And don't think that bottled water is any different. Most of it is simply tap water that has some extra treatment to it. Spring water? That is the same surface water that seeped under ground and was brought back up, treated, and bottled."

We all do realize that there is no new water? The total amount of water here on Earth is exactly the same as that which existed at the time of creation... or that Sunday, if you wish.

Wouldn't one of those juicers Jack Lalanne sells work just as well?

Your every day drinking water is little different. The water that is run off into the lakes that then is converted to drinking water contains all the fecal matter and chemicals that is flushed from the woods, fields, and pastures where all the animals do their business and crops and lawns are fertilized. And from the water discharged from city sewer water treatment facilities that is released into rivers after being treated. Ever walk across a cow pasture in the spring when the grass is at it greenest? Those cows do get loose, and I don't mean out of the pasture!

And don't think that bottled water is any different. Most of it is simply tap water that has some extra treatment to it. Spring water? That is the same surface water that seeped under ground and was brought back up, treated, and bottled.

Not really the kind of thing to dwell on or worry about.

Don't they use something similar on the International Space Station?

"Honey?"

"Honey, why are you pointing my .45 at me?"

"Why? You've got the guts to ask me WHY? The @#/\&*! Precious toy of yours failed again. Get out of that chair and come sample a glass of "water" like I just did. UP!"

Yeah, I can just see it...

mockturtle wrote:
I asked the question only rhetorically. ;)

Would be great if it could function on a small scale in the RV...you could dry camp for a looong time if the black tank fed some kind of process like this that re-filled the fresh tank.

On a simpler level, a more practical solution for me would be some kind of filtration system that recycled the gray water back into fresh. I'm OK dumping the black tank, it takes 2 weeks to fill it. The grey is what fills up fast and also uses most of the water.

jrnymn7 wrote:
It's a perpootual motion machine!

:: high-fives jrnymn7 ::