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New Personal UV Portable Water Purifier
Offers A Personal Spectracidal-Treatment
Solution, Appropriate For Use In All
Climates And Settings; For Campers, Hikers,
Trekking, Emergency Crews, Travelers,
Families.
Using a pair of standard camera batteries,
this Portable UV Water Purifier can safely
and quickly treat a liter of water in about
a minute. Lightweight -- less than 4
ounces (106 grams), rugged and simple
one-button operation, everyone should have
one packed in their survival kit!
What's In The Water?
Anyone who has spent time in backcountry, or
traveling 3rd world countries, has likely
used a portable water filter. Any
Intelligent Persona Who Did Not, And
Suffered From A Intestinal Parasite Likely
Does Now!
There Are
Many Waterborne Threats, Which Manage To
Kill Over 3,000,000 People Worldwide And
Seriously Sicken Hundreds Of Millions.
And They Kill In Places Like Modern City
Supplied Drinking Water, Like The Case In
Milwaukee Wisconsin, Where Many Died And
Almost Everyone Was Ill. These
Disease Vectors Fall Into Three Main
Categories:
1. Protozoa, such as Giardia, Entamoebic
Dysentery, and Cryptosporidium
2. Bacteria, such as Cholera, Shigella
(dysentery), E. Coli, Salmonella, Trachoma
3. Viruses, such as Hepatitis, Rotavirus,
Norovirus, Enterovirus (meningitis)
Listed above are the major culprits
responsible for waterborne illness.
Some, such as Rotavirus, kill over ? million
people per year while others are merely
debilitating, like Trachoma, which causes
blindness.
Although bacteria and viruses cause most
waterborne diseases worldwide, the average
hiker in a first world environment is likely
to be felled by a protist. There are
obvious exceptions: The recent spate of
cruise-ship diarrhea outbreaks were caused
by Noroviruses. In Mexico, what is
referred to as Montezuma?s revenge is a
Rotavirus. "E. Coli" has garnered
quite a bit of press for those areas
afflicted with livestock runoff, and so on.
Give these nasties a lethal suntan -- try
clean water from your UV Water Purifier!
How Does This Compare To Previous Older
Technologies?
The Major Complaint Typically Leveled Against
Popular Water Filters Is Simple, Inconvenience
------
They Are Not Practical!
Who Wants To Squat Uncomfortably
Next To A Stream For A Half Hour And Exhaust
Their Arm Muscles, And Body Energy Reserves,
Pumping A Gallon Of Water
For Cooking And Drinking; Then Do This Several
Times In A Day; Hiking Or On A Tourney?
In The Real World, A Hiking Filter Takes Up
Limited-Space And Weighs More Than A Pound
With A Wet Cartridge!
Pump filters often have many loose parts to
keep track of: hoses, cartridges, levers and
more. The plastic case can be fragile
-- especially in cold weather when the
plastic is brittle -- and, if dropped, will
crack, leaving you with a useless, heavy
souvenir from your camping trip. This
is especially true for those popular units,
which have a plastic weld line along the
side of the plunger, where it is prone to
cracking.
To
Prevent Mold And Mildew, The Filter On The
Pump Should Be Rinsed In Dilute Chlorine
Solution And Dried After Each Trip; Usage!
Micro-Pore Water Filters are very good at
protecting against Protists, Fair Against
Bacteria and poor against Viruses. The more
expensive, and heavier, ceramic based
filters do screen well for bacteria but
still let viruses through. Some filters
attempt to compensate for this with chemical
impregnation of the filter element with
iodine.
 However,
iodine takes time to work against pathogens
and water is not long in a filter. Thus with
iodine tablets, the recommended exposure
time is up to 4hrs if the water is cold,
which inhibits the antibiotic activity.
Even the newer "mixed oxidant" (MIOX)
portable systems still require several hours
to be effective, depending on the
electrolytic conversion of salt to a form of
pool chlorine that might kill most, but not
all, the pathogens in the treated water!
Why The New UV Technology?
 The
increasing pollution of the environment by
inorganic and organic substances has helped
ultra-violet (UV) disinfection gain
increased acceptance as a part of consumer
water treatment systems. Most high-end
home water filter systems now employ UV
components.
The UV disinfection process itself is
simple, reliable and economical, yet most UV
water purification systems still add one or
more carbon or mesh filters to improve taste
and odor of the water. These systems,
while effective, generally require high
water pressure, standard household electric
current, and bulky components and tubing.
Because of the complexity of these systems,
it is difficult to keep the cost down.
 But
in many settings outside of the home, a
full-blown water filtration isn't needed.
Instead, the primary need in a camper or
survivalist is to purify the water.
This is where UV is ideal. Ultra-violet
C-band (UV-C) purifiers work differently
from filtration systems by generating
ionizing radiation at 254nm that quickly and
effectively disrupts the cellular chemistry
of all known pathogens, halting DNA
replication, and breaking down organic
components of alien living organisms into
harmless material.
Why AuqaStar?
The AquaStar
Ultraviolet (UV-C) Water Purifier directly
addresses the five major challenges of
making a portable UV-C germicidal water
system: (1) Size, (2) Weight, (3) Cost, (4)
Durability, and (5) Complexity.
(1) The
UV-C purifier takes up virtually no
additional room in your gear or survival kit
since it fits inside the same type of
standard 1L wide-mouth water bottle that
most people pack. How do we do it? We
replace the cap on the bottle with a
low-profile weather-sealed electronics
package. And we also supply a quality
polycarbonate bottle with our purifier, just
in case you don't have one already; but you
can certainly use your own favorite bottle
if you prefer.
(2) AquaStar
adds only 3 ounces of weight (about 50
grams) -- including batteries -- to the
weight of the water bottle it is mounted on.
Both HDPE and polycarbonate Nalgene-style
wide-mouth bottles are already very light,
so for the ultralight hikers, AquaStar is
definitely the way to go. In addition, the AquaStar is designed to use small,
lightweight CR-123 batteries, the same type
used in pocket-sized point-and-shoot
cameras.
(3) By
making the AquaStar out of commonly
available components, the cost is kept low.
And, by keeping the parts count to a
minimum, and avoiding wasteful display
packaging, we drive the cost down even
lower. But low cost doesn't mean low
quality! Each component is still the best in
its class. From the odor-free polycarbonate
bottle to the Philips Sterilamp UV-C tube
-- rated at 8,000 hours of use -- AquaStar
is designed for years of trouble-free
operation.
(4) The
AquaStar is designed for the sports
enthusiast. We know what kinds of crazy
environments you seem to end up in because
we've been there! Jungles, deserts,
glaciers, flood zones, hurricanes, caving
and volcano watching -- whatever your
scenery, you can count on AquaStar.
The resilient
quartz UV-C tube is shock-mounted at both
ends in the bottle. The electronics head is
completely sealed against water, sand, and
gases. There are no moving parts to snap off
or bend. Of course, the AquaStar
Ultraviolet (UV-C) Water Purifier is also
right at home in your earthquake or disaster
preparedness kit, or in a roadside emergency
kit in the trunk of your car.
(5)
Purifying water is a serious business.
You want to trust the product your health
depends on. The intelligent brain of the
AquaStar Ultraviolet (UV-C) Water Purifier
is a programmable microcontroller that keeps
track of the sterilization process for you. AquaStar meters the correct dosage per
liter of 254 nm radiation for safe drinking
water. All you
have to do is push one button and wait a
minute for the green light. That's
it. Simple. The way things should be.
Specifications
Weight
- Empty (control head, UV-C tube,
battery cap attached): 2 ounces (56
grams)
- Loaded (as shipped, with batteries
and bottle attached): 8.5 ounces (240
grams)
- Spare Batteries (per pair): 1.1
ounce (31 grams)
- Polycarbonate 1L Bottle: 4.75 ounces
(136 grams)
Dimensions
- Control Head (external): 0.75" h x
3.2" w (19 mm x 81 mm)
- Control Head + Tube: 7.75? long
(19.6 cm)
- Including 1L Polycarbonate Bottle
(As shipped): 8.75? h x 3.5? w (22.2 cm
x 9 cm)
- Displacement Volume (in full
bottle): 2.6 ounces (78 mL)
Components
- Batteries: 2 Type-123 (DL123A,
CR123A, EL123A, PL123A or Similar),
3Volt Photo Battery. These batteries are
available at most drug stores and
supermarkets. Battery Life
Estimate: 60 cycles (60 liters, or 16 gallons,
of water).
- UV-C Tube: Philips TUV4T5 Germicidal
4W UV-C (254 nm) Sterilamp?,
hot-cathode, low-voltage. Rated useful
life (to 85% efficiency) = 6,000 hours.
Expected life as used in AquaSta (driven at 5W, producing 0.8W UV-C at 20
? C) = 2,000 hours.
- Bottle: Polycarbonate plastic
(equivalent to LEXAN? brand), 32 ounce
(1L) wide-mouth.
Dosage and
Efficacy
- Dosage Time: 80 seconds per liter (1
cycle). Below 40 ? F (5 ? C), dosage
time should be doubled (2 cycles per
liter).
- >99.999% effective against protozoa
(including Giardia, Entamoebic
Dysentery, and Cryptosporidium)
- >99.9999% effective against bacteria
(including Cholera, Shigella,
Salmonella, and E. coli)
- >99.999% effective against viruses
(including Enterovirus, Rotavirus,
Hepatitis, and Poliovirus)
EPA
Registration
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