Iodine

[Queso]

What can Hypography tell me about iodine tablets for water purification?

Pros, cons?

Seems strange to me...

[Mercedes Benzene]

Iodine is a fairly good choice for a chemical antiseptic, and is preferable to bleach or chlorine.

You really shouldn't have to worry about it being dangerous as long as an appropriate concentration is used.

If you buy tincture of iodine (which commonly comes in 2% iodide), I would use .40 - .50 mL per liter of water. Use a ratio to adjust the volumes depending on the concentration that you find (if it's not 2%).

 

The only problem with this method of water purification is that some bacteria like to cover themselves in a "cyst", and will be completely unaffected by halogens. Thus, it may be beneficial to filter first using a bacteriological cyst-rated mesh size.

[JackOfTraDeZ]

a much better and safer water purifier is 3% hydrogen peroxide, which you can buy at any drug store, commonly used as a topical antiseptic.

 

(halogens kill microorganisms but also create toxic halo-organics in the water)

 

put some in the water, heat briefly to boiling. if you want to get rid of all the peroxide when done, throw in a pinch of rust to decompose it.

 

 

here's a better thing you can do with iodine. you need the solid pure iodine, not the tincture. if you only have the tincture you can recover the solid by pouring it into a large volume of watewr and filtering.

 

now take the solid iodine and treat it with conc ammonia solution. filter and allow to dry. KABOOM!