Whisky Walks On Water
While working on solving the arsenic-poisoned water problem in Bangladesh for her PhD, Scottish scientist Leigh Cassidy turned to a process she was familiar with in her homeland – the art of whisky-making. In this particular case, what interested Cassidy was the “draff” of the matter. Draff are the leftover and discarded barley husks used in making whisky and Cassidy’s idea was that compressed draff might act as a good water filtration system. Together with a secret ingredient she added – the name of which she is withholding until patents come through – it did exactly that and Cassidy then created a device which she called the DRAM [for Device for the Remediation and Attenuation of Multiple pollutants]. Since the arsenic-poisoned water problem is specific to Bangladesh and there are not many [as in none] whisky distillers in Bangladesh, Cassidy said her new water filtration device could also work with local material such as coconut or rice husks.
When eventually brought to market, Cassidy is speculating that a DRAM device could cost as little as $10 [significantly less than the $40 water filtration device option currently available].