Portable water purification devices – also known as point-of-use (POU) water treatment systems and field water disinfection techniques – are self-contained units that can be used by recreational enthusiasts, military personnel, survivalists, and others who must obtain drinking water from untreated sources (e.g., rivers, lakes, etc.). The objective of these personal devices is to render unchlorinated water potable (that is, safe and palatable for drinking purposes).
Many commercial portable water purification systems or chemical additives are available for hiking, camping, and other travel in remote areas. These devices are not only used for remote or rural areas, but also to treat safe municipal water for aesthetic purposes by removing chlorine, bad taste, odors, and heavy metals like lead and mercury.
Read more about Portable Water Purification: Drinking Water Hazards, Prevention of Water Contamination, Alternatives, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words portable and/or water:
“Fewer and fewer Americans possess objects that have a patina, old furniture, grandparents’ pots and pans—the used things, warm with generations of human touch, ... essential to a human landscape. Instead, we have our paper phantoms, transistorized landscapes. A featherweight portable museum.”
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“We then entered another swamp, at a necessarily slow pace, where the walking was worse than ever, not only on account of the water, but the fallen timber, which often obliterated the indistinct trail entirely. The fallen trees were so numerous, that for long distances the route was through a succession of small yards, where we climbed over fences as high as our heads, down into water often up to our knees, and then over another fence into a second yard, and so on.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)