University of Northern BC student Lon Kerr is going to Kraków, Poland, this month for the Zeolite 2018 conference.

He is going with a supervisor to present on the use of zeolites in antibacterial filtration units.

“Mostly just testing concentrated solutions of bacteria against the filter rock itself,” explains Kerr, saying it is similar to how a Brita filter works.

“So we load a bunch of bacteria into the water, then we pass it through the rock or we add the rock to it and we shake the bottle full of zeolites and bacteria water, and then we measure how much bacteria grows at the end of it.”

In terms of how this research would benefit people in northern BC, Kerr says there are plenty of people who would benefit.

“People who live out of town, people who go camping, or go for hikes, and they just want to take a drink from a stream or they want to set up a camp someplace that’s not on a processed water line,” he says.

“These membranes that we’re working on, the zeolite products that we’re working on, are supposed to be more or less lightweight or transportable.”

Zeolite 2018 runs June 24th to 29th.