This article is provided
courtesy of Stars & Stripes, which
got its start as a newspaper for Union troops
during the Civil War, and has been published
continuously since 1942 in Europe and 1945
in the Pacific. Stripes reporters have
been in the field with American soldiers,
sailors and airmen in World War II, Korea,
the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Bosnia
and Kosovo, and are now on assignment in the
Middle East.
Stars and Stripes has one of the widest distribution
ranges of any newspaper in the world. Between
the Pacific and European editions, Stars
& Stripes services over 50 countries
where there are bases, posts, service members,
ships, or embassies.
By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes European Edition
First Sgt. Colin Rich, a combat veteran with the 504th Parachute
Infantry Regiment from Fort Bragg, N.C., reacts to his first
taste of HydroPack water, which was scooped up from a brackish
pond (Photo by Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes)
The HydroPack is a new portable osmosis bag adopted by the U.S.
military from commercially developed technology. The device can produce
one liter of purified water from any water source except salt water,
no matter how contaminated. The osmosis filtration process removes
99.9 percent of all bacteria and viruses, according to developer Hydration
Technologies Inc. of Albany, Ore. The bags have been tested by Special
Operations troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. ARLINGTON, Va. - Eager
volunteers were in short supply on Capitol Hill last week, as a Defense
Department food development expert held up a plastic bag filled with
mud.
"How about a drink?" urged Gerald Darsch, merrily shaking the bag
to reveal sticks and trash floating in the muck. "It's pond scum -
I just collected it myself."
The director of the Defense Department's Combat Feeding Directorate
was not trying to deter politicians and their aides seeking a free
lunch during the June 17 demonstration of the directorate's latest
innovations.
Quite the opposite: Darsch was showing off an advanced, commercially
developed portable water filtration device that can help prevent troops
from dying of thirst when they are too far from the Pentagon's logistics
train to get fresh, clean water.
Known as the HydroPack, the device can produce one liter of pure "nutrient
liquid" from any water source - except salty or brackish water, as
from a sea or marsh - no matter how dirty or contaminated.
"Any water source" includes urine, as U.S. special operations soldiers
proved when they tested the device in Iraq last summer, Darsch said.
"I can literally take water from a septic tank or a toilet, place
it in the bag, and about two hours later have one liter of best-quality
water, complete with electrolytes and sugar," Darsch said.
The bags are made by Hydration Technologies Inc., or HTI, of Albany,
Ore., which sells them on the commercial market for $40 to $50 each,
depending on quantity.
For the past two years, the Combat Feeding Directorate, which is part
of the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., has been
conducting tests with Army Rangers and special operations forces who
often work far from DOD's logistics safety net.
Water is one of the heaviest and most quickly consumed essentials
troops must carry, Darsch said.
Water "weighs a ton, and these guys are already carrying almost a
hundred pounds on their backs," he said. "Anything that can cut that
weight down is literally a lifesaver."
The trials have ranged from an airborne jump test in March 2002, to
real-world field tests in Iraq and Afghanistan, Darsch said.
The commandos have given the HydroPack a thumbs-up, Darsch said.
"Their response has been not only that this is great, but that they
want to buy it now," Darsch said.
According to Darsch, the HydroPack works using "forward osmosis,"
a scientific principal that says molecules will always distribute
themselves equally within a liquid, unless there's something preventing
that.
That something is a permeable membrane inside the HydroPack, whose
microscopic holes are large enough to permit hydrogen and oxygen molecules
to pass but so small that viruses and bacteria can't get through,
Darsch said.
The osmosis process is greatly enhanced by a powder made of electrolyte
salts and sugar, which acts like a sponge to draw the hydrogen and
oxygen molecules through the membrane wall and into a sterile chamber,
while the contaminants are blocked.
Inside the chamber the clean water mixes with the powder to form a
nutrient liquid that tastes like a sports fluid replacement drink.
The powder "isn't in there to mask the flavor" of the water, Darsch
said. Without it, "it would not work in a reasonable period of time
- a few drops an hour, and that wouldn't do anyone any good."
Each bag can be used three times a day, for up to 10 days, Darsch
said.
One drawback to the bags is that they don't work without the electrolyte
powder, which has to be added fresh every time the bag is used. That
means the liquid they produce can't be used for cooking, or to rehydrate
freeze-dried rations, Darsch said.
The good news is that the sugars in the electrolyte solution can provide
energy, while the salts can replace essential salts lost to sweating
and dehydration, Darsch said.
Natick is working with HTI researchers to develop an advanced version
of the bag that doesn't require electrolytes, as well as a bag that
can filter salt water - the one kind of water the HydroPack cannot
filter, Darsch said.
Combat Feeding is investigating the technology to develop a product.
Limited testing has been done on this item in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The item is commercially available. For more information write to:
info@hydrationtech.com
