The concept is old but the implementation is new. Using ultraviolet light to destroy bacteria. I was wondering about this last night (after hearing Dean Kamen mention it a couple times) and wondering why someone didn’t just create a led that emitted the proper light. It’s a pretty neat concept and even cooler when you can read what technologies can be created from these devices.
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oddly enough one of the biggest problems people dealing with water purification were talking about was trying to eliminate the huge amount of medication that passes through americans, is then cleaned and comes back through our water system via the tap…wierd interesting stuff…you thought you were just drinking water there? lol…
You know what… That doesn’t seem to surprise me.
I wonder how heavy metals are filtered out of the water supply also. There are a lot of things I certainly do not want to be drinking in the water that sould be filtered out.
Maybe I’m wrong…but I believe this technolgy might be simular to what is used in machines that sanitize saftey goggles/glasses in labs.
The light from the current generation of LED’s are not intense enough to sterilize water at flow rates for a typical house. It will be some time before they can compete will current UV fluorescent bulbs. Public water systems still rely on chemical sterilization because the can sterilize the whole distribution system. UV sterilizes at the point of treatment. A water softener and carbon filter can remove allot of the bad stuff in public water. Water is natures best solvent. Once something is in it, It’s hard to get it out.