Water filters made from wood fiber. (Techno News).

Filtering contaminants from water is challenging and expensive. Global

spending on filtration (including dust collectors, air filtration, liquid cartridges, membranes, and liquid macro-filtration) is estimated to increase from $17 billion ($US) to $75 billion by 2020. But researchers at the USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), have developed a new kind of water filter made from a variety of wood fibers such as juniper that is showing great promise in cleaning water contaminants in a more effective and less expensive way. These filters are cleaning heavy metals from former mine sites; phosphorous, nutrients, and pesticides from agricultural activities; and oil from highway and parking lot runoff. So far, the filters are proving to be about 90 percent effective in removing particles and sediments, 80 percent effective in collecting heavy metals, and about 80 percent effective in removing phosphates. Another exciting element to this filtering system is that low-grade wood material (bark, small- diameter trees, and agricultural waste) can be used for the fiber. This can help improve forest health because this undesirable material usually needs to be cleared out of the forest, and having a product it can be used for provides economic incentive for this otherwise costly work. This also contributes to the fiber being readily available and inexpensive. Because of a unique chemical property, juniper fiber is very effective for use in water filters. Juniper is a low-value species whose growth has run rampant in the southwestern United States, making it a serious fire hazard. Just as with other undesirable material, providing an economic incentive makes the process of removing juniper more affordable. If filters made with this juniper fiber prove to be successful, this could be a large market for juniper. Another advantage to using juniper fiber is that the bark is actually a desired part of the fiber processing. The bark contains even more of the valuable extractives than the wood. For other species, the b ark must be removed first, which adds to the cost of fiber production.