UNBC grad student making bacteria-filled water clean

PRINCE GEORGE–A UNBC Graduate has modified a specific type of mineral that when put in bacteria-filled water manages to kill it.

Natural zeolites, that is what Lon Kerr is modifying. Zeolites are a class of porous minerals found in BC, in an attempt at creating drinkable water. Kerr’s zeolite samples are taken from the International Zeolite’s Bromley Creek Quarry near Princeton, BC.

There’s a bit of a process in order to have the zeolites function as a water purifier. The zeolites are washed with deionized water and treated with a sodium-chloride solution which removes any water-soluble impurities, making a sodium-form zeolite. Once purified, the sample is soaked in a zinc solution.

Tests have shown that zinc-modified zeolite is in fact capable of killing 100 percent of bacteria. In just under an hour of exposure 0.1 g of the product can reduce the cell count of bacteria-filled water by over two-thousand per hundred milliliters.