Low-Tech Ceramic Water Filter

cassianoleal•about 3 hours ago

Ceramic filters are very common in Brazil, used in clay recipients which also keep the water cool even in summer without spending energy.

https://g1.globo.com/saude/noticia/2026/03/14/filtro-de-barr...

weinzierl•16 minutes ago

This and the low-tech electrical shower-head are the two everyday Brazilian things that never cease to amaze me.

fastball•about 3 hours ago

There is a company[1] in Indonesia that actually makes very nice versions of this tech.

[1] https://www.terrawaterindonesia.com/

3eb7988a1663•about 2 hours ago

That ad claims it removes microplastics. I was led to believe there are few easy ways to accomplish such a thing. Is this a, "Well technically, we started at 100ug/mL and ended at 99.8ug/mL => reduction!" or is this a meaningful improvement in water quality? The pot looks to just be clay + charcoal + silver - which is not significantly different from other home water filtration systems.

gizmo686•35 minutes ago

Filtering out microplastics is not particularly difficult. I just checked the first water filter brand that came to mind, and their independent test results [0] reported no detectable microplastics after filtration [1]. Having said that, the linked website above does not inspire much confidence. They have independent lab testing, which is good. However, that testing appears to only cover bacteria; and even their, only two types. Their lab testing also does not indicate any sort of methodology, and it is not clear if the lab was even attempting to test the filter, or if they were just testing the filtered water.

[0] Funded by them, and reported on their website

[1] Their sample had a known quantity of microplastics, of which they had a 75% detection rate for their control sample.

treetalker•about 2 hours ago

From https://www.terrawaterindonesia.com/the-filter:

> A single Terra filter purifies up to 42 liters of safe, pure drinking water a day, equivalent of 2 and a half plastic gallons.

Someone should tell them to check their math.

ssl-3•about 1 hour ago

Those are plastic gallons. Plastic gallons are similar to treetalker gallons and ssl-3 gallons, in that all of these units share the property of being different compared to US gallons.

(The ssl-3 gallon is particularly strange: It isn't even a measure of volume at all.)

com•about 3 hours ago

I may have had an early version of this at home in Indonesia as a kid. Given how close we were to both sea level and the equator, the fact that the water was cool, even when site power failed for days, was bliss!

ChrisMarshallNY•about 2 hours ago

When I was a kid, we'd go camping, and we had these water filters that you would pump water through, and they would filter it.

It was ceramic, and I think it was the same idea, but we used a pump to force the water through (like a bicycle pump).

notjes•about 3 hours ago

Got hackernewsd

metalman•about 1 hour ago

they are not kidding about the "lowtech" or at least slowtech part, hey it loaded! no wonder it was slow, it's reporting about 1990 from 2020

rainworld•about 3 hours ago

http://archive.today/2026.08.13-052756/https://wiki.lowtechl...

bilsbie•about 1 hour ago

Further reading: https://grokipedia.com/page/Ceramic_water_filter

Low-Tech Ceramic Water Filter

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