Water pitchers designed to rid water of harmful contaminants are not created equal, new research has found.
Scientists from The Ohio State University compared three popular pitcher brands’ ability to clear dangerous microcystins from tap water. They found that while one did an excellent job, other pitchers allowed the toxins – which appear during harmful algal blooms (HABs) – to escape the filter and drop into the drinking water.
The purifier that filtered water fastest, and which was made entirely of coconut-based activated carbon, removed 50 percent or less of the microcystins from the water. But the purifier that filtered water slowest – and which was made from a blend of active carbon – rendered the microcystins undetectable in drinking water. The study appears in the journal Water Science Technology: Water Supply.
“Because drinking-water treatment plants also use activated carbon, I figured that these home filters might also remove some microcystins, but I wasn’t expecting results this good and such big differences among the pitchers,” said Justin Chaffin, the study’s lead author and a senior researcher and research coordinator at Ohio State’s Stone Laboratory. Stone Lab is located on Lake Erie and serves as a hub for researchers throughout the Midwest working on issues facing the Great Lakes.
Continue reading at Ohio State University.
Image via NOAA-NASA.