Silver wire in water tank or supply?
 

The concern here is that water, when stored a while, can have bacteria and other nasties in it.

I was thinking that a grid of silver wire, placed in the water container, would serve to purify the water and make it safe to drink, or at least, make it easier to turn into drinking water.

Imagine an ounce of pure silver wire the size of a baking rack that would fit in your oven, placed in a 500-gallon or so sized container. The reason to use silver wire over say, an SAE is to have a greater surface area. If you want to get fancy, put it on a sliding pole that you can move up and down so that all areas of the tank can be reached.

Has anyone come across any research on doing this?

Re: Silver wire in water tank or supply?
 

Sorry, no research but a couple of thoughts.

The water will move around in the tank even if none is drained, due to convection and brownian motion, so I don't think you'd need to get the silver grid into all corners.

Might it be better if you used 10thou (0.01") fine silver sheet. It would be a lot less fiddly, also easier to clean if necessary.

Re: Silver wire in water tank or supply?
 

I have seen silver screens for filtration devices, where the water is forced through a choke-point (and the screen) although I quite like the idea of a silver mesh free-standing in the storage unit.

In fact, a smaller one for my canteen is an occuring thought.