Drinking 50 Gallons of Urine

Dean Kamen's Slingshot could solve the world's water woes

So maybe the Segway scooter wasn't quite the life-changing device inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen envisioned, but his next creation, The Slingshot, just might be. The 60-pound box can reportedly transform anything wet—ocean water, urine, arsenic-tainted well water, even toxic chemical waste—into pure, distilled drinking water.

The world's water problems are well documented: 50 percent of worldwide illness is caused by water-borne pathogens, and though we take access to inexhaustible supplies of water for granted in the U.S., much of the Third World doesn't have access to safe H2O. Kamen's invention aims to put control of the world's potable water supplies into the hands of individuals. Here's Kamen demonstrating his amazing invention on The Colbert Report:

The Slingshot is supposedly named after the weapon David used to bring down Goliath. Kamen hopes to bring production down to $1,000, so that even the poorest villages can pool resources to own one.

Can you imagine if he invented a portable, personal version for the backcountry? We'd never need to worry about water sources again, and if somebody asked where my Camelbak is, I could just point to my bladder.

— Ted Alvarez

Colbert and Kamen Solve the World's Water Problems (WIRED) Via The Goat

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READERS COMMENTS

God i love the Colbert Report
Posted: Nov 08, 2008 Chris

Kamen's Slingshot is also named for its high-energy-recovery steam-distillation process, which condenses steam at a higher pressure than it boils it. This allows the molar heat of vaporization to "slingshot" from condenser to boiler. Combined with a counterflow heat exchanger that cools the potable water with the incoming sludgy water, the Slingshot loses very little heat energy per liter once it reaches operating temperature. Until it reaches that temperature though you'll just be pouring heat in and waiting for water to flow out.

Scaling the unit down for personal backpackable use would require improving its insulation, to better control radiative losses from the smaller boiler/condenser assembly. It would still be fairly bulky and heavy compared to a hydration pack.

An alternative would be equipping waystations and shelters with combination Slingshot/toilets, so that you're never very far from either potable water or sanitary facilities on the trail.

As a bonus the Slingshot Toilet could replace the holding tank of a conventional wayside toilet with a 15-gallon bin liner, slowly filling with dog-kibble-like, air-dried nuggets of steam-sterilized "solids" that need only be packed out once a season. No more honey tank!
Posted: Nov 05, 2008 John Turner