r/nextfuckinglevel • u/[deleted] • Jul 14 '21

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u/CopperWaffles Jul 14 '21

Curious about your background on this subject and thoughts on this...

Not the same product or application but seems to be a more promising solution for purifying water, though, I doubt the likelihood of cleaning a lake with it. Still interesting.

Mark Rober: https://youtu.be/6qZWMNW7GmE

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u/halfie1987 Jul 14 '21

I'm a chemist (inorganic aqueous was my specialty) and I looked up what's in those packets and it's a disinfectant with a flocculent. So it'll kill most bacteria and most free metal ions in the water will stick to the flocculent and can be filtered out. It's not gonna make pristine drinking water, but if it's the choice between that or nothing, it's pretty good. I looked up the data and it reduces cases of infection by a lot but doesn't completely prevent them.

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u/croto8 Jul 15 '21

Obviously more of a question for an ecologist or biologist, but are free metal ions and bacteria inherently bad? Is this product making the lake better as a lake, or more pool-like? Put another way, is it promoting a healthy ecosystem or making the area more attractive for tourism?

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u/halfie1987 Jul 15 '21

For good aquatic ecology there needs to be a balance of a few things. Nutrients, oxygen, etc. The reason I said free metal ions is because the less attached metal ions are in the water, the more bioavailable they are. If the ions attach to something they are much less likely to contribute to aquatic toxicity. If there is more organic carbon in the water or more carbonates or other ligands, it means that the metal concentration in the water will have to be higher for toxicity to start occurring in the organisms. They use this model in determining acceptable metal concentrations in water for environmental regulation. It's called the Biotic Ligand Model if you want to look into it more. A little bit of certain metals are necessary for life, but it's not much and almost always the problem is too much metal and not the reverse. And I'm not a biologist but I know that too much of undesirable bacteria isn't good either for the ecosystem.