SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The water coming out of your faucet is safe to drink, but that doesn't mean it's completely clean. Chlorine has long been the standard for water treatment, but it often contains trace levels of disinfection byproducts and unknown contaminants. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers developed the minus approach to handle these harmful byproducts.
Instead of relying on traditional chemical addition (known as the plus approach), the minus approach avoids disinfectants, chemical coagulants, and advanced oxidation processes typical to water treatment processes. It uses a unique mix of filtration methods to remove byproducts and pathogens, enabling water treatment centers to use ultraviolet light and much smaller doses of chemical disinfectants to minimize future bacterial growth down the distribution system.
"The minus approach is a groundbreaking philosophical concept in water treatment," said Yongsheng Chen, the Bonnie W. and Charles W. Moorman IV Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "Its primary objective is to achieve these outcomes while minimizing the reliance on chemical treatments, which can give rise to various issues in the main water treatment stream."
Chen and his student Elliot Reid, the primary author, presented the minus approach in the paper, "The Minus Approach Can Redefine the Standard of Practice of Drinking Water Treatment," in the Environmental Science & Technology journal.
The minus approach physically separates emerging contaminants and disinfection byproducts from the main water treatment process using these already proven processes:
The minus approach is intended to engage the water community in designing safer, more sustainable, and more intelligent systems. Because its technologies are already available and proven, the minus approach can be implemented immediately.
Journal information: Environmental Science & Technology
More information: Elliot Reid et al, The Minus Approach Can Redefine the Standard of Practice of Drinking Water Treatment, Environmental Science & Technology (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.2c09389
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday September 15 2023, @08:54PM (1 child)
I've heard it does weird things to aquarium water chemistry as it dissolves, and I know it kills bugs pretty well in low humidity environments. If your basement isn't low enough humidity percentage, need to add more servers, thats what I say. That's all I know of that material.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday September 15 2023, @10:04PM
Servers -> heat. Which drives out humidity, but ugh, the warm humid air is worse. Humidity isn't too bad, actually. Small dehumidifier cycling does the trick.
Basement water problem is very recent, and only as a result of "gully washer" torrential rain. Fine mud packed into foundation perimeter on downside of house, plus me getting off my duff and cleaning out the trough so the downspout water goes downhill and away, rather than damming up, seems to have solved the problem.
Oh yeah- the bugs thing. Story is they walk through it, lick their feet, ingesting it, and it kills them. Gas bloat or something. Some say boric acid powder does the same thing. Despite living in a quite wooded area, I don't have too many crawling bug problems. Not too many flying ones either. Do have window screens. They're a must.
Oh gosh, memory just hit me- I occasionally do property management work for a friend (who pays me) who owns rental properties. Most are quite nice, one is kind of a rooming house situation. Not terrible, but he had one tenant that had some kind of bugs. I never saw them, but aforementioned friend spread DE all around. I remember it clogging vacuum cleaners, badly. Again, I never saw any bugs, dead or alive, so maybe it had already worked by the time I helped him paint, fix things, etc.