So in pursuing another interest of mine I ran across a water treatment product called Purogene. A 32oz bottle treats 960gal of water and cost me $29.95. It has two sets of instructions, one for treating your water storage system, and one for treating water. For the storage systems, mix product with lemon juice and let sit for 5 minutes, then add to system and flush. Interestingly, for water treatment just add purogene...

Either way, I noticed this has never been mentioned before on BPL or any other boards and was wondering if this is a possible cheaper bulk solution to water treatment in the backcountry... Wanted some thoughts and input..

Active Ingredients:
Chlorine Dioxide 2%
Sodium Carbonate .085%
Inert Ingredients 97.915%

For lightweight hiking, I use Micropur tablets -- which does away completely with Aqua Mira's "pre mixing" and the 5 minute wait. Purogene needs no pre-mixing either, but I believe Micropur is superior to both for the following reasons:

1. Chlorine dioxide -- the active ingredient -- is more potent in the solid Micropur than in liquid A.M. Micropur is allowed to mention its effectiveness over bacteria, protozoa and viruses. You should note that both A.M. and Purogene make no mention of protozoa or viruses at all -- but ONLY bacteria! To me, this is a critical Micropur advantage.

2. It is simply easier and quicker to rip open a packet of Micropur and drop in one tablet per quart or liter (or break the tablet into halves to treat one pint). Why mess with counting drops of liquid when you don't have to?

3. Micropur is lighter and more compact to carry -- esp. compared to Purogene.

4. Micropur likely has a far longer shelf life than an opened bottle of A.M. or Purogene.

Edited by ben2world on 12/31/2007 15:22:22 MST.

I agree with Ben. Micropur has been in my pack for awhile now, and I love its ease of use. Popping in a tablet and knowing that you're done is very nice. Plus, being able to take care of viruses is certainly an advantage. It just seems like a more evolved sort of purification than other products out there. Your best bet may be to try out all of these methods and select the one that works for you. Water treatment is a pretty personal choice; Purogene may be a great one for you. However, I will stick with what I am using now.

Interesting points and fast responses. The reported shelf life for Purogene is 5 years. The information about Micropur I didn't know and now I'm intrigued... Thanks

Don't forget that Potable Aqua now makes chlorine dioxide in tablet form, probably a little cheaper than Katadyn Micropur.

Ben has the advantages correct for Micropur tablets, but there is one significant disadvantage.

Aqua Mira costs .37c/gal (at regular strength)
Micropur tablets cost 1.89/gal

For a weekend trip that cost can be considered insignificant, but over a 5 month thru-hike (100-150 gal) that can become significant.

I always carry 10 tablets as backup or if I don't feel like waiting the 5 minutes.

> Chlorine dioxide -- the active ingredient -- is more potent in the solid Micropur than in liquid A.M.

interesting. Do we know a reason for this?

> Your best bet may be to try out all of these methods and select the one that works for you

the problem with water treatment is it's difficult to say if it's working at all. You can just evaluate how much you like using it.

Also, anybody know if micropur tablets may be repackaged? Like take them all out of their blisters and put them in a ziplock.

I would not repackage them. The little foil packets are completely air- and moisture-proof, which zip bags are not. Repackaging them would expose the tablets to both, which would eventually affect their potency. They'd also be susceptible to abrasion and perhaps even being smashed.

I use AquaMira when I can sit down and time is not critical. If I am out of water or treating water for later on the trail, just popping in a MicroPur is the way to go! MicroPur is too expensive for me when treating a lot of water.

Inaki:

I got that from reading another post back a few months ago -- comparing Micropur and Aqua Mira.

A poster compared Micropur's 4-hour treatment time to AM's 20 minutes. I replied that Micropur specs mentioned treating all 3 baddies (viruses, bacteria and protozoa) whereas AM only mentioned bacteria and nothing else.

The same poster wrote later that he got curious and called AM and the AM rep. mentioned about the 4x higher potency found in solids (such as Micropur). This is why AM is precluded from mentioning protozoa and viruses, but Micropur is allowed to. The rep did mention that AM too "should be" effective, but just can't say so on the packaging.

Edited by ben2world on 01/11/2008 23:07:03 MST.

> The rep did mention that AM too "should be" effective, but just can't say so on the packaging.
Meaningless, completely meaningless. Worth the paper it is written on.

> the 4x higher potency found in solids (such as Micropur)

I don't know about the chemistry going on but this sounds so odd when the chemical is the same. Anyway...

about the packaging, maybe a ziplock wasn't the best alternative but a plastic container. I was asking because I don't like blister packaging: it's light but it takes lots of space and it's fragile. I've had smashed tablets or, more commonly, a break in the foil cover. It still makes sense for short trips but for longer ones I much prefer a small plastic container, it's more compact(for a big number of tablets), only marginally heavier, if at all and protects them better from being crushed, which is more likely to happen as the trip gets longer. Actually Micropur used to sell one of their tablet types in a plastic container of this kind but they switched to blisters, don't know why

30 blister tablets weigh 0.6 oz total. For me anyway, when I used Micropur, I much prefer the individual blister packs. They really are small and light.

Given how sensitive the tablets are to water (immediate reaction similar to Alka-Seltzer), I would HATE to have moisture -- or even humidity -- building up in the plastic container of my tablets and quickly ruining them all!