Simple Pine Branches Can Filter Out 99% of Bacteria Producing Clean Water

I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, but I just found this today and I'm blown away. What are your thoughts?

"From MIT News: February 26, 2014
contact: Abby Abazorius, MIT News Office
email: abbya@mit.edu phone: 617.253.2709

Need a water filter? Peel a tree branch
MIT group shows xylem tissue in sapwood can filter bacteria from contaminated water.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — If you’ve run out of drinking water during a lakeside camping trip, there’s a simple solution: Break off a branch from the nearest pine tree, peel away the bark, and slowly pour lake water through the stick. The improvised filter should trap any bacteria, producing fresh, uncontaminated water.

In fact, an MIT team has discovered that this low-tech filtration system can produce up to four liters of drinking water a day — enough to quench the thirst of a typical person.

In a paper published this week in the journal PLoS ONE, the researchers demonstrate that a small piece of sapwood can filter out more than 99 percent of the bacteria E. coli from water. They say the size of the pores in sapwood — which contains xylem tissue evolved to transport sap up the length of a tree — also allows water through while blocking most types of bacteria.

Co-author Rohit Karnik, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, says sapwood is a promising, low-cost, and efficient material for water filtration, particularly for rural communities where more advanced filtration systems are not readily accessible.

“Today’s filtration membranes have nanoscale pores that are not something you can manufacture in a garage very easily,” Karnik says. “The idea here is that we don’t need to fabricate a membrane, because it’s easily available. You can just take a piece of wood and make a filter out of it.”

The paper’s co-authors include Michael Boutilier and Jongho Lee from MIT, Valerie Chambers from Fletcher-Maynard Academy in Cambridge, Mass., and Varsha Venkatesh from Jericho High School in Jericho, N.Y."

Read more HERE

HERE is the link to the actual paper written on the subject.

Co-author Rohit Karnik, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, says sapwood is a promising, low-cost, and efficient material for water filtration, particularly for rural communities where more advanced filtration systems are not readily accessible.

Gravel, sand, and activated charcoal, are all you need to make a water filtration system. I wonder what problem they are trying to solve here. It does seem like a useful wilderness survival technique though. Better than those purifying tablets. Of course, when camping, I typically filter my drinking water through fermented barley and hops.

Clay Hayes' video on water purification using siphon/filter from pine xylem or grape vines: "There are several primitive methods for water purification including surface wells (gypsy well), boiling, and other primitive water filters which utilize some combination of course substrate, plant materials, and charcoal. I recently found a research article from MIT (link below) that showed the xylem tissue of gymnosperms effectively filtered out all bacteria from contaminated water. In this video I set up a filter using those findings but also, using a never before seen method using grape vines as both a siphon and filter in one. A lab analysis confirmed the presence of e. coli bacteria in the water to be filtered. The water that passed through the grape vines had no detectable e. coli bacteria!"




Quick Recap: Cut a 3-4' section of grape vine or 12" branch section of pine/cypress from healthy non-drought stressed tree/vine, keeping orientation of sap flow in mind. Strip tree bark. Cut width to fit bottle and tape to ensure no seepage. Fill bottle w/raw water and elevate with branch leading down to receptacle for filtered water. From MIT study. Tested to remove e coli. https://news.mit.edu/2021/filters-sapwood-purify-water-0325

Other cool ways to filter water are by using moss, just drop some in and let it sit for a while.  And also, more complex, a Tesla coyle can also purify water by zapping all the bacteria in it, leaving it safe to drink.