A Novel Drinking Water Treatment Unit from Agricultural By-Products

As a result of doubt about water quality, American consumers spend about $5 billion dollars annually on bottled water and home purification systems. Since 1994, total revenues of the U.S. residential water treatment industry have grown at a compound annual rate of 8.2%, increasing from $1.6 billion at the retail level in 1994 to $2.2 billion in 1998. Most of the existing home treatment systems for removal of drinking water contaminants use ion exchange resins, which are costly and short-lived. TII proposes the development and production of versatile "Envirofilter" for use in home water treatment systems. Envirofilter will use granular activated carbons produced from select agricultural by-products subjected to special a combination of physical, chemical and thermal treatments to create an adsorption matrix with maximum affinity for both organic and inorganic compounds found in drinking water. Envirofilter is expected to provide consumers with an efficient, low cost and reliable purification of their drinking water while helping to preserve the environment through conversion of agricultural wastes into value added products and replacement of short-lived and costly petroleum-based ion exchange resins currently used in drinking water purification.