The Necessity of Clean Water

More than one billion people lack access to safe drink worldwide, and for this reason, water borne illness has become the leading cause of death. On any given day, over 50% of the world's hospital beds are occupied by people suffering from water-borne disease*.

The UN predicts that by 2025, 2/3 of the world's population will face periodic and severe water shortage. Natural disasters, such as earthquakes or floods claim most of their victims by dysentery resulting from contaminated water supplies.

HTI Products as the Solution

HTI's personal hydration products work very efficiently for Humanitarian efforts and as an early entry water solution for disaster relief situations. The products require very simple maintenance making them ideal for remote locations, they have the ability to be used in a variety of water sources, they have a great taste along with the added nutritional benefits of electrolytes and they can offer a lift reduction between 14x and 35x.

HTI's technology uses Forward Osmosis (FO), which is a natural equilibrium process. Two liquids are separated by a membrane that only allows water to pass, while rejecting even the harshest of contaminants. A sports drink syrup on the clean side of the membrane acts as a draw solution as water diffuses across the membrane to dilute out the syrup. The resulting clean drink provides much needed calories and electrolytes.

For disaster relief, HTI's forward osmosis products offer the following advantages:

• Forward osmosis can utilize a very wide range of water sources. It is essentially non-clogging, unlike other water filtration or purification technologies, so very turbid water sources can be used. Brackish water can also be used as HTI's membranes achieve very high salt rejection, up to 95%.
• In independent laboratory tests, HTI filters meet or surpass reductions for bacteria, viruses and cysts as specified by the EPA for water purifiers.
• HTI's technology is simple to use. The HydroPack in particular can be inserted into chaotic situations and implemented successfully. This not only provides immediate health benefits, but of course has significant security implications.
• HTI products rank very high in palatability. There have been problems in other disaster situations where a strong chemical taste has resulted in the disaster victims preferring contaminated water to the chemically treated filtered water.
• HTI products also provide calories and electrolytes which are very important in the early phase of disaster relief.
• HTI's technology greatly reduces logistics burdens. One AF pallet will hold 94,500 HydroPacks weighing 8,325 pounds. This amount of HydroPacks will produce 12,482 gal (47,250 L) of clean drink. This equates to about a 13.7x reduction in lift requirement compared to bottled water.

HTI's HydroPack, the X-Pack and the HydroWell Village System were all used successfully in the aftermath of the Haiti Earthquake and other disaster situations.

The HydroPack is a 12 fl. oz. (355 ml) pouch that is simply placed into a water source to self-hydrate. When it is hydrated, the user punctures it with a straw and drinks. The pouches can be left overnight to hydrate. In Haiti, a swimming pool was used as a water source to hydrate thousands of pouches. They were then distributed throughout the tent city of Carrefour to the earthquakes survivors. Any mud puddle or creek would work as a water source. The concept is to keep a supply hydrated so that there is always a safe drink available to the user.

The X-Pack is a multi-use product that can produce over 54 fl. oz (1.6 L) of clean drink a day per charge. The product comes with 10 charges, but with a resupply kit the X-Pack can produce up to 8.5 gal (32 L) of clean drink over the life span of the filter. This product was favored by medical personnel in Haiti for its multi-use capabilities. In Haiti doctors and nurses mixed the clean drink produced from the X-Pack with the powdered antibiotics they were supplying to their patients. Otherwise, the patients often have no choice but to mix the antibiotics with contaminated water which negates the whole purpose of the medicine.

The HydroWell Village System is a larger system that produces between 106 gal (400 L) and 211 gal (800 L) per day, depending on environmental factors such as the total dissolved solids in the water source and ambient temperatures. In Haiti, the systems are producing about 159 gal (600 L) per day.

While the HydroWell Village System is a relatively simple to use it does require some level of daily maintenance and oversight. Therefore, there is a training component involved. This product is recommended to be used by a relief group or local medical clinic where there would be a higher level of commitment to keep them maintained.

HTI's products are not meant to displace other bulk water strategies such as ROWPUs, municipal water systems, or shipboard desalination and bottling. Instead, they should play a very critical role in the early phase of disaster relief until other production and distribution strategies can be put in place. The early phase is critical to disease prevention efforts.

*(Statistics supplied by Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security)