Sphagnum Moss for Water Purification... Possibly all you need?

[w00dsmoke]

Actually activated charcoal is "botanical". It can filter out most things pretty nasty that lives in water.

 

[burning]

If you are interested in your house supply google for 'grey water systems'. It never made any sense to me how we flush toilets using perfectly good drinking water.

I use a British Berkefeld water filter in emergencies but i'm thinking of using one full-time

http://www.berkeywater.com/About_Berkey_Purifiers.html

hth

 

[locum76]

http://www.dhpe.org/infect/sporotric.html

something to look out for if you use sphagnum as toilet scrub...

 

[Bumpy]

If anyone is interested Mr Mears uses the moss to make a water filter (slightly in the "Blue Peter" style...) - half way through the Country Tracks episode here

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6TvE5jv4KPo

Oh... and I do not suggest you harvest it , but this is what it looks like:

http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/images/wetlands/sphagnum_6449a_A80.jpg

 

[Gailainne]

Actually activated charcoal is "botanical". It can filter out most things pretty nasty that lives in water.

Hmm

Creating the charcoal is easy enough, however steaming it at 400 deg C (40 bar or 40 times atmospheric pressure, I think) to activate it may be a "bit" of a challenge.

Stephen

 

[Toddy]

I wondered how they made that
I've a friend who will only drink water that she has run through the stuff.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Toddy]

http://www.dhpe.org/infect/sporotric.html

something to look out for if you use sphagnum as toilet scrub...

Sounds not so good
Is this a problem with the dried moss ? It certainly sounds as though it's being used that way in their study
I've never heard of a problem with it before.


cheers,
Toddy

 

[w00dsmoke]

And I thought it was piles... pmsl



Activated charcoal...the cheapest way to source it is to take it out sealed NBC filters from surplus shops or some friendly squadies amy exchange for beer tokens! I've heard it's possible to rig up an nbc filter as a water filter and purifier.

 

[Mungo]

Oh god, I'll never touch the stuff again! (well, probably will, the web is full of alarming information which generally doesn't apply 99.9% of the time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporotrichosis

I understand that distilled barch oil can be antiseptic.

Cheers,

Mungo

 

[steveme]

At a guess, I think you'd find it didn't work 100% but here in britain you'd probably get away with it as long as you weren't getting water from a minging stagnent pond.

Perhaps a better use for it would be to put it in a makeshift water filter -

I'm not 100% sure on how this is done but it's something like;

Cut the end off a bottle, shove a handfull of grass in it, then a handful of charcoal, then a handfull of grass, then sand, then grass. Pour water in the bottle and let it filter through, repeating untill water comes out clear - then boil.

Maybe you could swap the grass for moss to help with purification?

As moss soaks water up (and can be wrung out), would water wrung out of sphagnum moss be drinkable with no further work?

Other than that, I'll keep an eye on this as if you're right would be very usefull, good luck.

On a weekend bushcraft course (with ProAdventure, last year) myself and a friend built a filter from a bottle. After chopping the bottom off and inverting it, we put a tampon in the neck of the bottle, followed by more cotton wool, then a layer of charcoal, then spagnum moss and finally fern.

Suspended by chord, one of the instructors poured very muddy water in, and we got greyish output. on closer inspection we'd used a tampon with ridges and weren't getting full benefit of the thickness of cotton wool - had it been a tighter seal we'd have got crystal clear water, although I'd still have boiled it despite it travelling through the two active layers.

 

[Lasse]

Red thyme essential oil is a broad spectrum antibiotic. It's used to treat serious infections. I don't know if it would be a good idea to mix it in your water though, as it can damage intestinal flora etc in high doses. If you boil the water afterwards, the essential oil should be gone, as evaporating easily is what makes it an essential oil (extracted by distillation). Essential oils don't dissolve in water, so you'd first mix some drops in cream or another fat+emulsifier (maybe honey would do).
Many herbs are antiseptic, and usually that will make them good for your sore throat too, if you boil them into a tea. Most Essential Oils are pretty strong microbial killers (though big difference between them!). Tea tree EO works against fungus, colds, etc, but don't know about ingesting it.
Say herbs like thyme, lavender, rosemary, oregano, sphagnum moss, pine (at least the essential oil), peppermint maybe,... look into any good herb book. Though many are not full spectrum (fungus, virus, bacteria, parasite...) killers.
Boiled tea should usually be safer than plain boiled water though. Watch out you don't use too much of the same herb for too long (3 cups a day for 3 weeks is good with most herbs, then pause a little while, aspecially if you notice an ailment, this can also happen with long term use of nettle tea, coffee and other safe stuff).

Search for "phenol in Thymus vulgaris ct. thymol" in this text:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=...oXv&sig=pq4Ha_vRG-Qthk9wTZtjZu3tiSA#PPA574,M1

Lavandula angustifolia (EO):
http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Lavandula+angustifolia

 

[The Frog Kisser]

This low-tech filtration system can produce up to 4 liters of drinking water a day — enough to quench the thirst of a typical person http://bit.ly/1cbsAIh

 

[Cobweb]

Very interesting research and knowledge being shown

 

[21st century pict]

This was the results of my water carrying challenge without a water tight container last year set by LIwyd another BCUK member ,basically crushed SM, where I personally don’t think the Iodine content would be enough to sterilise the water, but where I got the SM there was certainly enough "apparently clean" water there to just filter and boil.

.Bog
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Where it comes to its use in the treatment of wounds possibly the Iodine content is only enough to keep itself sterile and is only acting as poultice, but without doubt its good stuff.