Chlorine Dioxide Water Treatment Backpacking

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 water treatment backpacking.

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. Chlorine dioxide drops pills and sawyer squeeze best value backpacking water filters. For instance the aquamira technical information section for their water treatment drops states chlorine dioxide kills protozoan cysts such as cryptosporidium this statement seems to me to be in clear contradiction at least to the average consumer to the cdc s stance that chlorine dioxide has a low to moderate effectiveness.

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. Disinfection with chlorine dioxide has a high effectiveness in killing giardia. Chlorine dioxide has become a popular alternative to iodine. This is the same chemical used for treating municipal drinking water.

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. Chlorine dioxide will get it eventually but requires four hours to work for sure. All of them have pros and cons. Its hard shell is resistant to chlorine and iodine.

Water treatment methods have evolved past the days of iodine tablets but that doesn t discount iodine as a treatment. 15 for 1 oz part a and 1 oz. Since 2005 my principal means of treatment have been chlorine dioxide e g. Chlorine dioxide been used by municipal water treatment plants since the late 1940 s and is the superior chemical treatment.

You can save close to a pound by choosing a lightweight water treatment option over a heavy. Weight weight is a very important factor for any item you plan to carry into the backcountry. 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.