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Zapping Giardia
#18123 09/07/11 02:29 PM
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 2,251
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wagga Offline OP
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The high-tech water-treatment device uses ultraviolet light to disable parasites and other critters that, when swallowed, can unleash gastro-intestinal mayhem.

"The advantage of ultraviolet treatment is that it's chemical-free. The technology is relatively simple: as water pours through pipes, it passes through clusters of high-powered light tubes about 8 inches apart. The lights, which are 20 kilowatts each - about 40,000 times stronger than a bedside light bulb - sterilize giardia, cryptosporidium and other germs as they move past."


Verum audaces non gerunt indusia alba. - Ipsi dixit MCMLXXII
Re: Zapping Giardia
wagga #18126 09/07/11 02:44 PM
Joined: Sep 2009
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Rod Offline
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Like a Giant Steri-pen

Re: Zapping Giardia
Rod #18127 09/07/11 02:50 PM
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"It's like a tanning salon, except if you were a microorganism you'd be fried in a second," said Bruce Macler, a toxicologist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco. "It's just light, but it burns them up."


I like and use the Steri-pen, but I thought that the Steri-pen leaves giardia and other such critters living, but destroys their dna such that they can't reproduce. It was my understanding that only when giardia can reproduce in your system can they do any damage. Do the UV rays actually kill microbes?

Brent N

Re: Zapping Giardia
wagga #18707 09/25/11 08:02 AM
Joined: Sep 2011
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The term used in the water treatment sector is "inactivation". Brent N is right, the UV disrupts the ability of the virus, bacteria or protozoan to replicate by damaging the DNA, and the Steripen uses the same technology. However, it is misleading in the article to characterize the water treatment process as "chemical free". Most treatment processes use free chlorine as a pretreatment to kill virus ( chlorine is ineffective against cryptosporidium and giardia) in order to reduce the size of the UV reactors and dose needed to meet EPA treatment requirements.

I like the Steripen too. It is simple to use and so far seems effective.


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