1. Introduction
1.1. Clean water: A humanitarian crisis
The importance of access to safe drinking water was reflected in target 7B of the UN Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), which sought to halve the percentage of population (from 1990 to 2015) without sustainable access
to an improved drinking water source [1]. According to JMP [2], this goal has been achieved. Furthermore, such
efforts to improve access have been credited with reducing drinking water related deaths by 31% [3]. Nevertheless
safe drinking water is not currently accessible to over 780 million people [4]. Drinking contaminated water has been
estimated to contribute to 1.5 million deaths annually, with over 90% of cases being children [4]. Existing water
sources are increasingly at risk of contamination, and population growth is driving a greater demand for clean water.
Subsequently, there is still a need to improve the quality and quantity of potable water to developing nations, and
make these systems affordable and useable to the end user. This is a particular challenge in remote and developing
areas where it is often unviable to implement large-scale water decontamination and storage.