拒绝做象牙塔里的书呆子，
这个漂亮姑娘花8年时间，
发明了拯救6.63亿人生命的一张纸。
···
可以喝的书
Drinking Book
这是一本“可以喝的书”
它只有26页，
外形看起来与普通书本没任何不同
但不论是封皮，
还是书的第一页，
都赫然标着“Drinking Book”，
暗示着它的与众不同。
这本书被时代杂志评为2015年最棒的25个设计之一
发明这本书的姑娘叫
Theresa Dankovich（简称Teri），
连她自己也没想到，
8年前开始的一项研究，
将改变几亿人的命运。
作为一个有学识、高颜值的化学女博士，
Teri没有被冰冷枯燥的理论知识困住，
这个温暖可人的姑娘，
关注更多的是如何用自己掌握的知识，
改善我们触手可及的真实世界。
在实验室待了8年之后，
她有了惊喜的发现：
一种叫纳米银的离子，
简直就是细菌的克星！
但是哪里被细菌困扰呢？
她想起了几年前的一次非洲之旅，
那里的自然风光让她震撼的同时，
看到这一幕幕场景却让她痛心···
孩子们喝不到纯净的饮用水
即便有压井，
出来的水竟是这种颜色
她从没想过，
对我们来说每天喝的
再普通不过的纯净饮用水，
对他们来说竟这样艰难！
而在全球，每年有6.63亿人口，因为缺乏最基础的净水设备，而喝不到纯净的饮用水，由此导致的疾病、死亡更是难以计数，这在发展中国家尤其严重。
儿童在喝垃圾堆旁的溪水（摄于云南省富源县）
面对这种情况，
Teri突发灵感，
能不能将纳米银离子嵌入纸中，
做一张史上最强的过滤纸呢？
在实验室埋首苦研几个月，
历经上千次的试验后，
她做到了！
她成功将纳米银离子嵌入纸张，做出了抗菌性极强、质地优良的黄色纸张
经验证，
这种纸张能去除水中99%的细菌，
饮用标准超过美国的直饮水，
这让她喜出望外。
她立马带着纸张跑到南非、肯尼亚、海地、印度等国家，测试了25种受到严重污染的水源。
她完全融入当地的居民中，
和他们一起试用这些纸
观察他们平时的取水来源
以及耐心仔细地询问他们喜欢哪一种设计
但在和当地居民聊天的过程中，
她却惊讶地发觉：
最可怕的不是水源受到污染，
而是当地居民缺乏
最基本的饮用干净水的意识。
知识的传播远比这张滤纸重要！
于是Teri有了一个绝妙的主意，
用食用级的墨水，
将安全卫生饮水的知识印在纸上，
做成一本书。
压边
用食用级墨水印刷
这样普通的纸张摇身一变，
不仅可以滤水，
还能传播知识。
每一页纸上，都写着温馨的提示语：“你所在村庄的水源，可能含有致命的病菌，但是这本书里的每张纸都是滤水器，可以确保你的饮水安全。”
“如果你喝了不洁净的水而身体不适，记得一定要去医生那里”
而这本书的设计也相当巧妙、便捷
用的时候只需打开包装盒，
将包装盒叠在一起
撕下一页放在包装盒底部
剩下的就只是倒水，
脏水进净水出
这样一本看似小巧的书籍，
平均每页可以过滤100升的饮用水，
一本26页的书，
可以满足一个人4年的饮水量！
这一发明一经爆出，
立刻引发好评无数
不仅是Teri的朋友圈被赞爆
“神器”
今天在报纸上看到你发明的可以喝的书，祝贺你！
Teri!有人告诉我世界上有这样一项发明，没想到发明者竟是你！太棒了！祝贺你做出了如此完美的工作！！！
而且占据了世界各大主流媒体的头条，
BBC、NBC、CTV等知名媒体纷纷报道
但Teri对此却相当淡定，因为她深知净水之路任重漫长，如今她联合世界上著名的非盈利机构“Water is Life”,积极研究产品的升级改造，而现在已经成效卓著。
更便捷易携的饮水设施已经投入试验
Teri的生活也因为这本可以喝的书，和世界的脉搏紧紧地联结在一起，从今开始的每一天，都有人因为这本书，远离死神。
不论你是个无名小卒，
还是个大名鼎鼎的风云人物，
只要内心温暖装着世界，
总有可能在自己的位置上做出改变。
- END -
Eliminating water-borne bacteria with pages from The Drinkable Book could save lives
Note to journalists: Please report that this research will be presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
A press conference on this topic will be held Monday, Aug. 17, at 2 p.m. Eastern time in the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Reporters may check-in at Room 153B in person, or watch live on YouTubehttp://bit.ly/ACSLiveBoston. To ask questions online, sign in with a Google account.
BOSTON, Aug. 16, 2015 — Human consumption of bacterially contaminated water causes millions of deaths each year throughout the world—primarily among children. While studying the material properties of paper as a graduate student, Theresa Dankovich, Ph.D., discovered and developed an inexpensive, simple and easily transportable nanotechnology-based method to purify drinking water. She calls it The Drinkable BookTM, and each page is impregnated with bacteria-killing metal nanoparticles.
Dankovich will explain her technology and reveal new results of recent field tests conducted in Africa and Bangladesh at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS is the world’s largest scientific society. The national meeting takes place here through Thursday.
Although silver and similar metals have been known for centuries to have the ability to kill bacteria, no one had put them into paper to purify drinking water, Dankovich notes. While earning her doctorate at McGill University, she found that sheets of thick filter paper embedded with silver nanoparticles could do just that, eliminating a wide variety of microorganisms, including bacteria and some viruses.
She continued her research at the University of Virginia’s Center for Global Health, expanding the repertoire of embedded nanoparticles to include ones made of inexpensive copper. Dankovich also began field investigations of water purification applications in Limpopo, South Africa, as well as northern Ghana, Haiti and Kenya.
“In Africa, we wanted to see if the filters would work on ‘real water,’ not water purposely contaminated in the lab,” she says. “One day, while we were filtering lightly contaminated water from an irrigation canal, nearby workers directed us to a ditch next to an elementary school, where raw sewage had been dumped. We found millions of bacteria; it was a challenging sample.
“But even with highly contaminated water sources like that one, we can achieve 99.9 percent purity with our silver- and copper-nanoparticle paper, bringing bacteria levels comparable to those of U.S. drinking water,” Dankovich adds. “Some silver and copper will leach from the nanoparticle-coated paper, but the amount lost into the water is within minimal values and well below Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization drinking water limits for metals.”
Last year, she formed a nonprofit company, pAge Drinking Paper. In collaboration with the nonprofit WATERisLIFE organization and Brian Gartside, a designer formerly with DDB New York and now with Deutsch, her company developed a unique product that is essentially a book comprised of pages embedded with silver nanoparticles. Printed on each page is information on water safety both in English and the language spoken by those living where the filter is to be used. Each page can be removed from the book and slid into a special holding device in which water is poured through and filtered. A page can clean up to 26 gallons (100 liters) of drinking water; a book can filter one person’s water needs for four years.
Now a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, Dankovich is further developing the technology and conducting more field studies in rural communities. In June, Dankovich teamed up with International Enterprises (iDE)-Bangladesh, an international nonprofit, in a field trial to explore commercialization of the silver nanoparticle paper filter for household water treatment. In several districts in southern Bangladesh, customer-focused surveys provided rich insights into easily accepted and culturally appropriate filter designs, she says, adding that the field tests continued to show significant reductions in coliform bacteria counts.
Dankovich is also connecting her chemistry expertise with industrial designers at the University of Cincinnati and with environmental engineers at Carnegie Mellon. “We have a bunch of designs, and we are trying to trim them down and keep them simple,” she says. “Worldwide, many people use a 5-gallon bucket for many needs, so we are basing our approach on that type of container.
“Along with applications, our biggest current focus is to scale up, going from a lab bench experiment to a manufactured product. We have to go from ‘cool chemistry’ to something everyone can understand and use.” (A video about the project is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYTif9F188E.)
Dankovich acknowledges funding from iDE-Bangladesh, Carnegie Mellon University, WATERisLIFE, NIH Fogarty International Center and Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada.
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 158,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
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