Don't Just Wear Your Silver, Drink It.

Silver “nanopatches” are made into a ceramic porous media to help disinfect water. Two types of clays were used: 1) Redart’s clay composed of minerals illite and kaolinite 2) South Africa clay: composed of smectite minerals. Figure 2A demonstrates the reduction of E. Coli for both types of clay and Figure 2B demonstrates the low levels of Ag EPA approved (<0.1 mg/L). Also, these nanopatches were used for 154 days showing no change in Ag release (Figure 5).

Figure 2A demonstrates the correlation of the E. Coli Reduction as time progressed using both the South African and Redart's nanopatches.

Figure 2B demonstrates the total number of Silver released, not changing much as time passed for both the South African and Redart's nano patches. 

Figure 5 demonstrates a linear linear line of the amount of silver being released over a period of 154 days. This indicated the reusability of these nanopatches for a minimum of 154 days.

The benefits of this study were the reusability of these nanopatches, the fact that Ag levels disinfect better than chlorine, and it is cheap to produce ($2 U.S.D). The costs of this renovations is that it is dependent on the user and needs to be studied in vivo.  However, this study is important because it can be taken to countries where water is not highly sanitized, being inexpensive and reusable.

References: 

Ehdaie, B., Krause, C., & Smith, J. A. 2014. Porous Ceramic Tablet Embedded with Silver Nanopatches for Low- Cost Point-of-Use Water Purification. Environ. Sci. Technol. 48: 13901−13908.