The Drinkable Book: Using Science for Saving Lives
ByFarhana Mohamed, MBA, PhD
Los Angeles, CA
According to the World Health Organization, 3.4 million people die every year in developing countries due to water-borne diseases. (C. Mathers et al., 2009). Since about 1.1 million people in the developing world do not have access to clean potable water, the odds of people continuing to die with the lack of availability of clean water are staggering.
There has been quite a bit of scientific research on ways of providing safe drinking water such as using chlorine and iodine tablets, UV radiation, ceramic filters, etc., but their usage is not widespread due to knowledge-barrier, cost, equipment cost, and other barriers. The novel Drinkable Book TM introduced in 2015 not only increases awareness by educating the user about water safety, hygiene, and basic principles of sanitation, but its pages can be used as filters to remove 99% of bacteria from the untreated water to produce drinkable clean water without compromising taste.
Dr Theresa Dankovich, an American chemist, invented the technique during her PhD research at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. She presented her groundbreaking findings on August 17, 2015, during the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. The book’s thick pages, coated with non-hazardous silver nanoparticles, act as filters and hence called the pAge Drinking Paper - with Ag as the abbreviation for argentum, Latin name for silver.
The book uses green technology such as non-toxic silver particles and edible ink. Each page is removed and placed in a simple filter holder; when untreated water is passed through the filter, it removes almost all bacteria and turbidity.
One page conveniently cleans up to 26 gallons of water and the whole book can be used for one year or more depending on use. During her post-doctoral research at Virginia University and Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, Dr Dankovich and her team tested the pAge Drinking Paper in South Arica; she also worked with a couple of charities, including WaterisLife, to successfully test the Drinkable Book TM in several developing countries such as Ghana, Haiti, Kenya, and Bangladesh. The future plan is to translate the book in several languages and test the filters for viral and other non-bacterial water-borne diseases.
A nonprofit, pAge Drinking Paper, was founded by Dr Dankovich and her team in 2015 to collaborate with other non-profits for expanded testing of the drinking filter paper. In 2016, the team founded for- profit, FoliaWater, for scaling up production and enabling global distribution of the product, but with the same humanitarian mission to provide clean water worldwide. The Drinkable Book TM also underscores the importance of enhancing literacy in the developing countries as a means of introducing sound health-oriented preventable technologies. As the Folia Water states, “All technological advancement is contingent upon literacy and education, so Folia Water products include educational materials that allow users to gain control of their water quality, sanitation, and health”.
The Drinkable Book TM is yet another example where scientists, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists work together without discrimination to make this world a better place by enhancing quality of life.
