John Hollenhorst, KSL TV
Bottoms up with Great Salt Lake water? Utah companies say it can be purified
By John Hollenhorst | Posted May 6th, 2014 @ 7:04pm
ANTELOPE ISLAND STATE PARK — If someone suggested taking a drink out of the Great Salt Lake, many people would be inclined to say, "Yuck."
But two Utah companies are trying to show the Pentagon that their technology can take some of the foulest water around and turn it into drinking water for combat troops. They just wrapped up a weeklong demonstration on the causeway to Antelope Island in which they drew water from Farmington Bay.
For the past two years, Thermal Management Technologies has been using a $2.1 million contract from the Department of Defense to modify technology owned by Purestream Technology. The water-purification process — essentially a highly energy efficient method of distillation — grew out of a research program headed by Dr. Clair Batty at Utah State University.
In the demonstration at the Great Salt Lake, a small pump was used to suck water from Farmington Bay. That water is loaded with more salt than oceans, teeming with brine shrimp and bugs and algae, polluted with things like mercury and — according to an old urban legend — pickled sewage.
But the "yuck" became "yum" when Amy Hansen, permitting manager for Purestream, stirred the treated water with a lemonade mix. The purified lake water itself is essentially tasteless.
"The taste? It tastes like water," Hansen said. "It just tastes like water."
It's a variation on a centuries-old device: a still. Purestream's process uses a more efficient method, though, that company officials hope will make it into a best-seller with the Pentagon.
"It's thermally engineered to use lower levels of energy," Hansen said. "The water is heated, the steam is then condensed back into crystal-clear drinking water."
Purestream has a large-scale version that's going into commercial use in oil and gas fields. It's so big it needs to be hauled around by a semi. The smaller unit being tested by and for the Army is much more portable and can be hauled into position on a small flatbed trailer. The technology has not been endorsed by the Army, but the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center found it promising enough to fund the testing program.
According to Hansen, the Army hopes the effort will lead to better purification systems than those currently in the field that typically rely on reverse osmosis and filtration systems.
"They foul sometimes," Hansen said. "They require a lot of labor, a lot of manpower, to be able to work them."
Purestream's unit is operated by a single person and it's easy to haul in for a company of soldiers. Within a few hours, it can be up and running, producing 1,800 gallons of drinking water each day — 75 gallons every hour. The source can be an ocean, a lake, a pond or a river, the company said.
The treated water has not yet been certified as safe to drink, but a Purestream statement said: "We can say that we have been testing it to a standard generic set of city water quality tests and that we have all been drinking the water."
Besides potential military uses, Purestream also envisions using the portable system in emergency response situations and on humanitarian missions around the world.
Now the unit is being delivered to Michigan for more testing by the Department of Defense.
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- jason1137 · 518 days agoI don't even drink Utah's tap water let alone water from the lake... Ewww
3 - radio73 · 518 days agoSLC's tap water is nationally recognized for its cleanliness and taste. It tastes much better than bottled water.
3 - Pierce524 · 518 days agoMidvale City has the best drinking water in the state, that is a fact
- Swiss girl · 518 days agoI think this is awesome! Let's apply this technology to our oceans and get Nevada and California out of our water supply!
7 - robotfood · 518 days agoI war thinking the same thing swiss girl! Get water to all of the deserts I the states as well as the deserts in every other country. Wow this could change the world.
5 - old g. · 518 days agoThey have a big purification unit near Yuma to clean up some of the water from the Colorado River before it enters the Gulf and it's used by the farmers south of the border.
2 - F1ynn · 518 days agoHats off to the drinkers in this testing process!
5 - Jitter Bug · 518 days agoLet's spend a ridiculous amount of money to purify salt water just so we can feed people's obsession with green lawns.
3 - Acer · 518 days agotwo Utah companies are trying to show the Pentagon that their technology can take some of the foulest water around and turn it into drinking water for combat troops, and they should it in California there is a drought there, and plenty of ocean water.
3 - Ben H. · 518 days agoThis is a great idea until someone declares the brine shrimp endangered.
4 - Mtr · 518 days agoIt makes me mad. Great Salt lake is Dieing. Water that used to fill the GSL is going into the new resivoirs, and now they are looking for more growth in utah that will be using more water. If they have the technology to purify water let them use it in the ocean for California. Did you know that the original Saltare would have been out of the water for at least 30 years? except for just a couple of times. Utahns are killing the Great Salt Lake and our government doesnt even care. Even the water managers dont care. why distroy something so unique. its a natural wonder.
- Todd E. · 518 days agoThis is a wonderful idea except the amount of energy it uses to purify the water. But if this technology was combined with geothermal energy it would almost be a perpetuating system. Holes would need to be drilled to the point within the earth's crust which could heat the water to the boiling point. Those holes would be a bit deeper than an oil well but not by much.
- Blesbok · 518 days agoDid anyone read this article before commenting? All they are doing is did tilling the water. You know, the technology that had been around for centuries and is used by rednecks in the backwoods to make moonshine. The only thing that is innovative about this technology is that it is more energy efficient...and probably very expensive. It is meant for locations where the military has difficult access to water. This isn't going to change anything on the massive scale and this definitely isn't going to change anything in the third world.
- Uinta-hiker · 518 days agoThe Israelis have a device that condenses water out of thin air. To me, THAT's cool!
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