LifeStraw® Family - Durability

Assessment of the performance of LifeStraw^® Family after exposure to conditions representing lifetime of field use (durability testing)

The program was especially designed to ensure that the basic functionality of the product (namely producing clean purified drinking water in the anticipated quantities) was not compromised by these lifetime representative conditions. LifeStraw^® Family is considered to be exposed to all these conditions during its lifetime and therefore all tested samples were subjected to all the below tests:

• Simulation of transport conditions
• Simulation of a drop during transport
• Aging/weathering of the product under elevated temperature (50°C) and elevated humidity (30,
• 50 and 100% RH)
• Simulation of a drop of the LifeStraw^® Family at home
• Simulation of static load on the ultrafiltration cartridge
• Endurance of all moving parts: blue tap, red tap, and red plastic bulb
• Over-pressurization of the ultrafiltration cartridge
• Antimicrobial efficacy, final control

Partner: BPO, The Netherlands

Outcome: LifeStraw^® Family was able to withstand all the tests specified in the product durability testing program; ≥ 97.5% of the products functioned well after being exposed to all these tests: the membrane units were still intact, all parts and components were functioning, cleaning/backwashing of the product could be performed properly and enough clean purified water could be drawn from the blue tap