Chlorine Dioxide Water Treatment Backpacking

Chlorine dioxide has become a popular alternative to iodine.

Chlorine dioxide water treatment backpacking.

Below are the best ways to treat your water while hiking or backpacking. Disinfection with chlorine dioxide has a high effectiveness in killing giardia. Since 2005 my principal means of treatment have been chlorine dioxide e g. 15 for 1 oz part a and 1 oz.

Chlorine dioxide drops pills and sawyer squeeze best value backpacking water filters. The tablet and droplet forms share identical technology but only tablets like those from aquamira 10 for a 10 pack 1 oz have been approved by the environmental protection agency as a purifier. Weight weight is a very important factor for any item you plan to carry into the backcountry. This is the same chemical used for treating municipal drinking water.

Chemical treatments are a popular choice with lightweight backpackers but unless they re using chlorine dioxide and waiting a full four hours to drink the treated water they re taking a risk with crypto. Chlorine dioxide been used by municipal water treatment plants since the late 1940 s and is the superior chemical treatment. All of them have pros and cons. Chlorine dioxide will get it eventually but requires four hours to work for sure.

Chlorine dioxide kills viruses bacteria and giardia in 30 minutes but it is recommended that you wait up to 4 hours to kill cryptosporidium. These items are chosen because of popularity weight and effectiveness. They re also easy to use just pop one tablet into your bottle but they take 30 minutes to kill giardia and up to four hours for cryptosporidium. You can save close to a pound by choosing a lightweight water treatment option over a heavy.

Combination filtration and disinfection has a very high effectiveness in removing and killing giardia when used with chlorine dioxide and an absolute less than or equal to 1 micron filter nsf standard 53 or 58 rated cyst reduction removal filter. In wine there is wisdom in beer there is strength and in water there is bacteria david auerbach 2002 methods of water purification include boiling filtering ultraviolet light and chemicals. Water treatment methods have evolved past the days of iodine tablets but that doesn t discount iodine as a treatment.