• Question: if your theory works will it help clean water in africa

    Asked by Ratboy2015 to Richard on 9 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Simons

      Richard Simons answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      I hope so!
      I’m doing the ground-work for a device which will kill the bacteria in dirty water using UV light.
      UV light causes DNA damage in bacteria (and your skin!), stopping them from replicating: if a bacterium can’t replicate, it can’t infect you.
      UV-LEDs (like normal LED lights, except they emit UV rather than visible light) are a new development that we’re hoping to take advantage of in the next few years (they’re not quite powerful enough just yet).
      My research tells us the how to make the most of these tiny light bulbs so that we can treat water in small, cheap and efficient devices. When we’re done we’re hoping to be able to give each household a small device (about the size of a kettle) which, instead of boiling water, will kill all the bacteria and make it safe to drink.

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