Can anyone give me a sense of how much iodine would be needed to make, let's say, 3 ml of water thoroughly sanitary?
The Wikipedia article seems to be speaking of ~2.92 grams of iodine per liter of water. That would leave you with about ~666 mg of iodine in an 8 oz. glass of water. By comparison the Institute of Medicine states that the RDA of iodine for an adult male is 150 micrograms.*
Actually, I made a slight error, but the true amount still seems to be massive. Let me re-do my calculations and then edit this post. Update: Correction made.
*Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board. Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Arsenic, Boron, Chromium, Copper, Iodine, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Silicon, Vanadium, and Zinc. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001. Retrieved from http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iodine-HealthProfessional
What confuses me is the fact that there's going to be a lot of iodine crystals sitting on the bottom of the supernatant solution. How does one work with that in the future, after having used some of the liquid for some time? It just seems like a big complication to me and it's making my head spin.
Thanks for the measurements, by the way.
This might be a better fit for the chemistry forum, I don't understand the biological component.Can anyone give me a sense of how much iodine would be needed to make, let's say, 3 ml of water thoroughly sanitary?
This might be a better fit for the chemistry forum, I don't understand the biological component.
People in the U.S. consume an average 240 micrograms (µg) of iodine a day. In contrast, people in Japan consume more than 12 milligrams (mg) of iodine a day (12,000 µg), a 50-fold greater amount. They eat seaweed, which include brown algae (kelp), red algae (nori sheets, with sushi), and green algae (chlorella). Compared to terrestrial plants, which contain only trace amounts of iodine (0.001 mg/gm), these marine plants have high concentrations of this nutrient (0.5—8.0 mg/gm). When studied in 1964, Japanese seaweed consumption was found to be 4.5 grams (gm) a day and that eaten had a measured iodine concentration of 3.1 mg/gm of seaweed (= 13.8 mg of iodine). According to public health officials, mainland Japanese now consume 14.5 gm of seaweed a day (= 45 mg of iodine, if its iodine content, not measured, remains unchanged). Researchers have determined that residents on the coast of Hokkaido eat a quantity of seaweed sufficient to provide a daily iodine intake of 200 mg a day. Saltwater fish and shellfish contain iodine, but one would have to eat 15—25 pounds of fish to get 12 mg of iodine.
How does iodine work as an antimicrobial?
Iodine's exact antimicrobial mode of action is not fully understood, but it is believed to be associated with its ability to rapidly penetrate the cell wall of micro-organisms[17].
Schreier et al also investigated the effects of PVP-1 on microbial cells and found that it affects the structure and functions of enzymes and cell proteins and damages bacterial cell function by blocking hydrogen bonding and altering the membrane structure. These multiple modes of action ensure the rapid death of microbes and help to prevent the development of bacterial resistance. Because the microbicidal action of iodine is related to several directly toxic effects on the cell wall, rather than through specific molecular pathways (as used by antibiotics), resistance is highly unlikely and reports of iodine-resistant strains are exceptionally rare
The 8 mg per liter conforms to my statement of 'several drops per liter' and my last question was is the sanitizing capacity of iodine maxed out at these proportions? What if I put 8 mg in a shot glass, for example?
When I was at school we had a teacher who showed us how to make Nitrogen Triiodide.
I blame my Tinnitus on him.