When you’re exercising outdoors, you’re probably losing a liter or more of water an hour, mainly through sweating. Replacing that is easy if you have piped water handy. If not, you’ll be relying on what you carry – and water is heavy. Or you’ll be risking disease by drinking from sources you’ve found.
Boiling water kills living impurities, or you can add a commercial treatment that deals with them chemically. Both methods take time, and don’t remove unhealthy particulates. Chemical additives alter the taste.
What if you could carry a filtering bottle that let you drink wild water safely straight from the source? Remarkably we’re just about there, with products such as the LifeStraw Peak Squeeze and Hydrapak Flux using hollow-fiber membranes to all but eliminate bacteria, protozoa and even microplastics from water you might scoop up from anywhere, and about as quickly as you can sip from them.
Neither, however, eliminates waterborne viral pathogens, which could leave you with vomiting and diarrhea from gastroenteritis, or less commonly with other serious diseases such as encephalitis, meningitis and hepatitis.
Into that space has stepped Oassay, a Chinese startup that claims to have invented a revolutionary compact filter that does remove viruses, as well as bacteria, heavy metals, hydrocarbons and even fluoride when operated in tandem with a hollow fiber filter. The filter system passes water at drinkable flow rates for seamless hydration in the field.
"Oassay was born from a breakthrough in the lab,” it says in a document featured on a Kickstarter campaign that went live recently. "After five years of focused research, our partner team developed a revolutionary 3D porous, flexible filtration material – NanoFlex Carbon. Its featherlight weight and soft elasticity sparked a bold idea: what if we turned this breakthrough into a versatile, on-the-go purification solution for everyday life and outdoor adventures?"
Oassay’s product, the FlexFlow, is a three-in-one rehydration package that potentially covers a big range of needs. It presents as a squeezable 776-ml (26-oz) silicone water bottle with a head that contains a removable filter compartment. The compartment houses Oassay's proprietary NanoFlex filter, inline with a hollow fiber filter whose 0.1-micron specification parallels that of other squeeze bottle filters. It appears that Oassay’s NanoFlex filter acts as a pre-filter for the hollow fiber filter, and that it can be back flushed independently to clear clogging.
The entire filter unit can be unscrewed from the bottle and screwed onto another, possibly larger, bottle with the same 28mm thread specification. Or it can be used standalone for drinking directly from a source through attachable tubing.
Completing the package is a cup that fits the foot of the bottle and can be ordered in silicone or, at extra cost, titanium alloy, the latter material rendering it capable of being heated directly on a stove and soon drunk from.
A tech sheet linked from Oassay’s website, which attributes test results to Chinese laboratories, specifies total filtration capacity at 400 to 600 liters (100 to 150 US gallons), and the filter’s replacement interval at 12 months. Initial flow rate is said to be 18 to 25mL (0.6 to 0.8 fl oz) per second.
Oassay's Kickstarter page is offering discounts on the expected retail price of $US112 (plus shipping) for the FlexFlow. It says the first batch of bottles will ship in November.
There are other ways to clear water of viral pathogens, among them the versatile but relatively big and expensive MSR Guardian pumped filter. The Guardian uses a hollow fiber membrane five times finer than those typically employed on squeeze bottles and comes highly recommended by Outdoor Gear Lab.
Has Oassay really come up with an effective alternative for the casual adventurer who may be looking mainly to lighten their load while drinking from attractive looking streams whose quality is unknown? We’ll be following its progress with interest.
Source: Oassay
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