Water Purifying Trike
 

Check out this ride that purifies water on the go. It recently won the Innovate or Die Compitition, sponsored by Google and Specialized Bicycles, which invited "pedal-powered ideas that benefit humanity and the environment."

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/liv...~1_Gallery.JPG

Video of the machine in action: http://video.mercurynews.com/mms/rt/...2-1453098379d7

More info: http://www.mercurynews.com/columns/c...nclick_check=1

There was another post on this. My thoughts:
It holds 20 gallons, but purifies 2 gallons- so what do you do with the other 18 gallons?
It's made for developing world, but the design sort of assumes a smooth road.
Filters are an inordinately expensive way to purify water- find for camping, but not so hot elsewhere.

You can disengage the wheels and just use the pump/purifier assembly. That way you can pump out another two gallons whenever you need it. My question is: can you also disengage the pumping mechanism? Otherwise, if it's a long trip to your water supply, you could pump that 2 gallon tank to overflowing.

Hopefully, being a tricycle, it'd be stable enough on the terrain even if it was a little rough. It really just needs to be easier or as easy as walking the route however many times it would take to get an equivalent amount of water.

Hadn't thought about the filters, though. That could be a real problem, especially if people counted on the filter, stopped using other purification methods, and didn't replace the filter. I guess everyone can't pick up the multi-pack at Costco. But the bike solves two problems: transport and purification of the water. Even if it the purification part breaks down, the transport aspect would still have value, although if you were just looking at transporting water, and not purifying it, there might be more efficient ways to go.

Still, I think it's a great idea.

Not necessarily, this filter's manufacturing process requires clay, coffee grounds and cow manure.

http://info.anu.edu.au/ovc/media/_pd..._final_web.pdf

They claim it's quite effective.

--J

Well, if was uncertain of the purity of my water, nothing would make me more certain that filtering it through cow manure.

I think they would have been better off designing a trailer that could be hooked to a bike, or an animal, or a person, or a vehicle, etc. etc. 20 gallons of water is, what, about 170lbs? So you are going to pedal a 200lb bike, plus the resistance of the filtering?

There really isn't any mention of maintenance either. I'm wondering how complicated it would be to fix/replace the filtering unit.

Personally, I think that giant cylinder wheel that holds water is a better idea, but it doesn't filter the water.

Like so many design projects... a nice idea in theory that would suck or not work at all in the real world

I wouldn't wand to haul around the weight of 20 gallons of water on a singlespeed.

Yeah, if it was a stationary bike that *pumped* the water from one place to another, that would be great, but to actually transport it? The only reasons to transport water are to get it uphill, or over a long distance on flat ground between the well and where you actually live. Most people in the second situation live in remote and poor places and I doubt they would have a nice paved road to ride the bike on. And my guess is that in both situations, a repurposed, otherwise unridable bike, a small nonelectric pump and some hose would be cheaper and easier.

But, innovative to apply bike power to something new!

That's a really cool idea, but I have to agree its not entirely practical. The average rider only produces some 100 to 200 watts as a sustainable level over a period of hours and since this is a water purifying item, it should be pointed out that 2 hours of activity to produce 100 watts of bodily power will result in some sweat and water loss. Also, the bike probably costs more than $600. Alternately, you could buy a 100 watt solar panel for $600 which should produce peak power for some 4 hours a day (more than most folks want to dedicate to bike riding just to purify water) every day there's good sunlight, and even run unattended, so there's no need to have someone watching over it. Solar and wind are probably our best bet for sustainable energy as we use up all our fossil fuels in the next 200 years or so.