ORT is Oral rehydration therapy, a blend of sugar with
NaCl was found to cause ion channels to transport water
much more rapidly, rehydrating a person 7 to 20 times
faster than regular water.
ORT saved vast numbers of childrens lives during the
20th
century as a result of keeping diarrhea
from killing
them.
I think that adding a polymer to ORT like
polymethylmethacrylate or a protein polymer like jello
would create the right concentration of ions to
accelerate
rehydration throughout the GI tract, because when you
think about it, a person drinking ORT has possibly 100 pt
effectiveness for the first tenth or twentieth of the GI
tract, then it is diluted or possibly concentrated as the
fluid travels. Jello or PMMA gradually releasing the right
concentration might make ORT even more lifesaving,
more
effective, possibly with fewer doses.
Also ORT is cheap, yet I think making ORT jello or PMMA
then powdering it could cost 1 or 2 cents more per
serving.
Still cheap. Thus this improves the medicine that cures
the
worlds second leadingcauise of death during the 20th
century.
Notably though if polymerized ORT was an entire dime
more to make, then the utility could shift. At the
developed world making ORT a dime more would lack
effect on the number of packets distributed. A while
ago
online I found out that you could give $ to unicef where
10c would provide a person with an ORT packet, so if
polymer ORT were 20c that might actually reach fewer
people, so its important to get the cheapness part right
as
well as the chemistry.
polymer ORT may be cheaper than normal ORT as it
works
better, thus 1/3 the ingredients could be used, then
every
plastic packet auto produced as 3 packets.
Creating the 3c
ORT packet. optimizing the chemistry might actually be
less than 1/100 of a cent. One one hundreth of a cent is
very cheap. Polyacrilamide gel is 75c to 1 usd per KG at
alibaba.com (vegetable gelatin is similar at 1 - 2.2 usd
per Kg)
thus 1/10c/gram or 1/100 of a cent per tenth of a gram.
So optimizing the chemistry might actually be less than
1/100 of a cent.
Noting that if ORT was the size of a powder drink packet
during the 20th century, the same film packaging
machines
could make three times as many items at about the same
surface area with more efficient ingredients.
That would benefit people as even though ORT is an
effective cure for the worlds second leading cause of
death
among children during the 20th century it still had only
partial distribution, so even cheaper is more effective.