Best Water Purification Tablets & Drops
Water is a necessity for survival, but it’s also a necessity to have it clean enough to drink. We’ve all experienced food poisoning a few times in our lives, and impure water will make that seem like a breeze when you get sick from it. The best water purification tablets make cleaning water quick and easy.
I’ve been testing water purification tablets for several years now, and keep them in my own kits. I’ve measured the containers, taste-tested the purified water, and tried each one using several types of outdoor water sources.
My top recommendation is for the Potable Aqua PA+, which are fast-acting and effective tablets in small portable bottles.
If you want something even more portable, the Katadyn Micropur tablets are tiny and lightweight, but are a trustworthy and quick treatment. I also suggest a household DIY solution, and a few water treatment drops- with one even made of natural ingredients.
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Best Water Purification Tablets
Potable Aqua PA+
Lightweight, Fast, and Effective
It turns out that it’s tough to beat the long-time leader of portable water purification that delivers a no-color, no-taste, fast water treatment.
*Price at time of publishing; check for price changes or sales.
Potable Aqua (with PA Plus) water purification tablets hit our top spot since they get the job done at the right price. These tablets are effective, fast, and don’t leave that funky iodine taste or stain that cheaper one-shot tablets have. They are lightweight enough to add to any kit and very simple to use. After just 35 minutes, you’ll have water that is ready to drink when it filters out bacteria and Giardia lamblia.
Specifications
- Treatments: 50 tablet pairs
- Total Water Treated: 25L
- Time Required: 65 minutes
- Purification Method: Iodine
- Weight: 2.24 ounces
Many people complain about the taste of Potable Aqua, but that would be the single tablets rather than this two-tablet solution with the extra neutralizing tablet. This makes the taste of the water much more palatable. I’ve been using this two-tablet product for so long that I had forgotten that the single tablet was sold on its own. For the small price difference, it is worth the investment to clear the water up and neutralize the taste.
Add Potable Aqua PA+ Tablets to your kits and don’t look back. I use them in my own kits and am not surprised to see that they easily beat out the competition when we put them to the test.
Best Portable Tablets
Katadyn Micropur
Preportioned, Fast, and Thorough
Individually packaged tablets keep your purification solution lightweight, portable, and easy to use.
*Price at time of publishing; check for price changes or sales.
Not only are these the best tabs to use in your mobile kits, but they are also simple and thorough. You use one tab for one liter and let it react for 30 minutes to 4 hours (if the water is cold and dirty), which is one of the simplest reactions you can find for chemical water purifiers.
Specifications
- Treatments: 20 tablets
- Total Water Treated: 20L
- Time Required: 30 minutes
- Purification Method: Chlorine Dioxide
- Weight: 0.35 ounces
Many other treatment types require mixing, or multiple tablets, or aren’t as aggressive at cleaning up the water. The chemical disinfectant leaves hardly any trace of taste, and it performed well in my taste test.
They have an extensive shelf life and are the easiest option to spread between your family’s bug out bags and other survival kits. I pop off several packs for everyone’s bags as they are virtually weightless and take up hardly any room.
Pick up some Katadyn Micropur MP1 Water Purification Tablets for any of your kits for the best water treatment solution in tablet form, and you won’t regret it.
Best DIY Purification
Clorox Bleach
Common, Inexpensive, and Effective
You probably already have this purification method under your sink or in your laundry room.
*Price at time of publishing; check for price changes or sales.
Also available to buy at Walmart.
Bleach is the most recommended emergency water treatment because it is so widely available, inexpensive, and one jug can treat thousands of liters of water.
Specifications
- Treatments: 81 fl. oz jug
- Total Water Treated: Approximately 14,000L
- Time Required: 30 minutes
- Purification Method: Chlorine Dioxide
- Shelf Life: 1 year
- Weight: 88 ounces
There are some drawbacks to bleach, though. The shelf life isn’t what you want for stockpiling; the taste it infuses in water can be tough, and it’s not ideal to drink bleach-purified water for long periods. Boiling is the emergency purification method that’s preferred over bleach, but that’s not always possible.
I’ve found that this size rotated through your long-term storage is more than enough. It’ll expire long before you’re able to use it to treat 14,000 liters of water because bleach starts degrading in just 6 months. Use it with laundry or whatever other uses you have around the house in the 6-18 month time, backstocking the jugs every 6 months.
Pick up some standard Clorox Disinfecting Bleach for cheap and convenient water treatment during an emergency.
Best Water Treatment Drops
Aquamira
Fast, Scalable, and Dependable
Treat a large amount of water with just 2 ounces of fluid and no residual taste.
*Price at time of publishing; check for price changes or sales.
Aquamira is a bit different (and it’s not a tablet), but we felt it was a worthy inclusion in our testing since so many people suggested it. It did not disappoint!
Specifications
- Treatments: Pair of 1 fl. oz bottles
- Total Water Treated: 112L
- Time Required: 20 minutes
- Purification Method: Chlorine Dioxide
- Shelf Life: 4 years
- Weight: 3.5 ounces
Use the bottle droppers to drip 7 drops into the included mixing cap, and then let the reaction happen for 5 minutes. The reaction will slowly change the color of the mixture over those 5 minutes, until it is bright yellow. Pour that mix into a liter of water, shake or stir, and then let it sit for 15 minutes. After that time has passed, you’ll have drinkable water. This is the fastest purification method I tested and is even quicker than the tried-and-true boiling method!
The downside to these is that they are liquid and can have some related problems. For starters, you have to babysit the drop mixture while it reacts, so you can’t be on the move or you risk spilling it. Also, the bottles are squeeze bottles, so you can get some leaks if you aren’t careful where you pack them. They take longer to work in cold weather, and require you to agitate the water by shaking or stirring it, which isn’t always ideal. In large containers, you can slosh the water around just by tipping them slightly.
After my testing, I found it best to include these as part of my home water storage solution rather than a mobile kit. They are significantly better tasting than bleach mixtures and can scale to large storage containers, too. It treated both the lake water and the rain barrel water just fine, despite both of them being cold.
Pick up some Aquamira Water Treatment Drops for fast water treatment at home.
Upgrade Treatment Drops
Purinize
Natural, Taste-Free, and Long Lasting
Drops can often treat a lot of water, but Purinize stands out as the one that can do it without a shelf life.
*Price at time of publishing; check for price changes or sales.
Purinize is a flocculant, so it’s similar to Chlor-Floc and P&G Purifier of Water. That’s where the similarities end, though, since it uses natural minerals as the coagulant agent, giving it an unlimited shelf life.
Specifications
- Treatments: 2 fl oz bottle
- Total Water Treated: 40L
- Time Required: 60 minutes
- Purification Method: Flocculation
- Shelf Life: Unlimited
- Weight: 2.4 ounces
The unlimited shelf life and natural ingredients are the big draw here. The bottle doesn’t treat that much water, though, since you have to add a lot of drops per liter, and an entire teaspoon per gallon. The treatment time is longer than other liquid purifiers, which typically use chlorine dioxide.
It doesn’t add much taste on its own, but it also doesn’t completely neutralize the tastes from your source water. The lake water tasted like sediment water (although there was no sediment), and the rain barrel water had a slight asphalt-like taste.
Pick up some Purinize Water Treatment Drops to stockpile unlimited water treatment on the shelf.
Comparison Table
| Purification Tablet/Drop | Recommendation | Price* | Method | Treatment Volume | Best Feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potable Aqua PA+ | Best Overall | $9 | Iodine | 25L | PA+ taste neutralizer |
| Katadyn Micropur | Best for Portability | $16 | Chlorine Dioxide | 20L | Tiny tablet weight |
| Clorox Bleach | Best for Low Cost DIY | $6 | Sodium Hypochlorite | 14,000L | Widely available |
| Aquamira | Best Drop Treatment | $16 | Chlorine Dioxide | 112L | Tasteless volume treatment |
| Purinize | Best Shelf Life | $17 | Flocculation | 40L | Unlimited shelf life |
| Potable Aqua | $9 | Iodine | 25L | Proven formula | |
| P&G Purifier of Water | $10 | Flocculation | 40L | Cheapest flocculant | |
| Aquatabs | $12 | NaDCC | 50L | Cheapest individual tablets | |
| Coghlan’s Drinking Water Tablets | $12 | Iodine | 25L | Rebranded PA | |
| Coleman Purification Tablets | $12 | Iodine | 25L | Rebranded PA+ | |
| Chlor-Floc | $16 | Flocculation | 30L | Fastest Acting | |
| Potable Aqua Chlorine Dioxide | $18 | Chlorine Dioxide | 30L | Less Taste | |
| Ef-Chlor | $33 | NaDCC + Chlorine | 300L | High Capacity |
How I Tested
Water purification tablets and drops are compact solutions with long shelf lives (typically) that can help you get clean drinking water. They are a survival staple, so finding the best brands can be important if you are trusting your life to them. To test them all, I bought a wide variety of purification additives, measured them, and taste-tested the water they treated.
Here is how I tested for this review:
- Taste Taste: I drank purified water from each type of tablet and drop by adding them to water I collected from multiple sources.
- City Tap: I first tested them with city tap water several years ago to see how they tasted after treatment.
- Rain Barrel: While winterizing my rain barrel, I emptied the water into a one-liter beaker so I could watch the reactions of each treatment type. Then I drank it.
- Freshwater Lake: I traveled to a lake and filled a one-liter stainless steel bottle with the water. I treated the bottle with every method, which took a long time in some cases.
- Measurement: I measured the tablets and drop containers to see how portable they were. I also weighed them on a digital scale.
I did not consider any in-place purifiers, membrane purifiers (like straw filters), UV purifiers, or powder, and focused entirely on water purification in tablet or drop form. You can find examples of each of those that work well, but the purifiers with small packaging are great for portable kits.
The best filters can be found in their own review: Best Survival Water Filters.
A few that I compared were the same product and manufacturer, just different brand labels.
We’re always looking for new and better equipment, so if you have a purification tablet you swear by, let us know down in the comments. We review most of our tested gear annually, so we can always get it in the next roundup and see if it makes the cut, and we can see if it will beat out our top picks.
Why Trust TruePrepper
According to the survival rule of three, water is pretty important. Any emergency manager would tell you that as well. Stockpiling water and having ways to purify and filter it are necessary for longer-term disasters.
I’m Sean Gold, and I have a degree in Emergency Management and am a longtime prepper. I bought all the tablets and drops I tested, as I’ve been testing water purification tablets for close to a decade now, and keep them in my own emergency kits.
Analysis & Test Results
The best water purification tablets have several important features to look for:
- Value
- Effectiveness – 50% of overall score weight
- Speed – 20% weight
- Shelf Life – 20% weight
- Versatility – 10% weight
When you get the right blend of these, you can find reliable tablets that will keep your water purified in an emergency. Below, we break down what each of these features means for truly dependable tablets that you can trust with your life:
Value: Cost vs. Benefit
The amount of money you spend on something like purification tablets shouldn’t blow out your budget. Having one is better than having none, but the same applies to other tools and gear you may need for an emergency. Budget according to your risk and your needs, rather than just spending lavishly.
On the flip side, you don’t want to go too cheap. Luckily, every tablet we tried was effective when the instructions were followed correctly, but there are still benefits to spending more. Cheap tablets require more time to purify the water and often leave a chemical taste. Don’t get too frugal when it comes to something you will rely on in an emergency.
*price at time of latest review update
You never want to spend too much money on one resource, especially something like tablets. It’s better to diversify your tools and preparedness gear to make sure you are covered for a wide range of scenarios. There is a sweet spot where you get high value out of the best features with not too high a price, which is where our top pick sits.
Effectiveness
The effectiveness of a purification tablet is tied to the contents and quality of the tablet. Several different chemical compounds can be used to purify water, but only a few of them are available in tablet form. Water purification tablet chemicals typically include:
- chlorine
- chlorine dioxide
- iodine
- NaDCC
- Flocculants (various)
These vary in effectiveness and have their strengths. Chlorine dioxide is the most powerful of the three listed here and is one of the most effective at killing a wide range of microorganisms, including viruses and protozoans.
Some flocculants don’t use chemicals at all and use minerals as the coagulation agent.
Besides the treatment method and chemicals used, I also looked at how much water could be treated with the entire package, and then rounded out the effectiveness score by taste-testing the options.
Treatment Capacity
The highest capacity treatment you can get is bleach. No tablet or drop comes even close to the vast amount of water a jug of bleach can purify for only a few bucks. Still, it’s a worthwhile cost comparison to see how the tablets and drops stack up against each other.
That’s why I prioritized the treatment volume in the comparison table.
Taste
A few of the treatment options can leave the water with an odd flavor. Some iodine treatment tablets also come with iodine neutralizer tablets to eliminate the unpleasant taste with a two-part tablet treatment. Chlorine tablet-treated water can be left exposed to air to allow the chlorine to evaporate over time to reduce the odd taste.
Unpleasant taste isn’t the only concern. Those with thyroid conditions, iodine allergies, and pregnant women should avoid iodine water purification tablets.
Speed
Speed is important in an emergency, and important for clean water in an emergency. Four hours becomes a much longer time to wait for water purification than 30 minutes, since water purification tablets are an emergency solution.
In-place and bulkier water purifiers are expected to take a little longer, but water purification tablets are meant to be fast and easy. If you wait around all day for purified water, you may as well be boiling water to purify or using other solutions. In the military, we called this a ‘fire and forget’ method – add a tablet to your water bottle and keep on moving. Then you can drink it after a short time limit of at least 30 minutes. This lets you stay mobile and concentrate on other tasks.
The Potable Aqua Chlorine Dioxide tablets came in at the top end, requiring a full four hours of treatment time. This was odd, since the other chlorine dioxide options, like the Micropur and Aquamira, were very fast.
Some tablets could be cut short- you could cut the PA+ treatment time roughly in half if you needed to, but you’ll end up with that rough iodine taste. Flocculants were also fast, but require additional straining after the treatment period to filter out the coagulants.
Shelf Life
Some water treatments degrade quickly, even in their original packaging. As a baseline, bleach gives us only 18 months from the manufacturing date before it starts to degrade. Unfortunately, liquid bleach isn’t very effective to stockpile unless you can cycle through the amount you typically use using FIFO (first in, first out) storage.
Water treatments with longer shelf lives can buy you plenty of time, though, with the Purinize drops not even having a shelf life since it only uses shelf-stable flocculating minerals. Here are the rest of the shelf limits for water treatment tablets and drops:
Versatility
The packaging and composition of purification tablets can provide some versatility when you need to use them outside of your regular function or in unique scenarios. Individually packaged tablets are amazingly convenient for bug out bags and everyday carry.
The Micropur tablets are the lightest tablet solution and are very small. Two tablets in their packaging didn’t even register on our scale with the lowest unit (grams) selected.
How to Use Water Purification Tablets
Water purification tablets are very easy to use, and they come with instructions printed right on. Take care to read them, and it’s hard to go wrong. You’ll need to know how much water you are purifying, usually listed in liters.
Before you start tossing tabs in, you’ll also need to filter out any debris and sediment in the water. This is not necessary with all water purification tablets, but it is good practice since it will speed up the process and require fewer tablets.
Once you’ve discovered how many tablets you need to treat your membrane-filtered water, you just add the tablets and wait for the time listed on the packaging.
Who Needs Water Purification Tablets?
The CDC and FEMA hope everyone has water purification tablets on hand. There is not enough in the strategic stockpile for everyone, and distribution would be a massive challenge. Membrane filtering isn’t clean water, and you’ll need potable water no matter what emergency you encounter.
This is why you’ll find it suggested for almost every kit.
Water purification tablets are essential for:
We suggest at least a few tablets for these kits as well:
Of course, you can always use the tablets for things beyond emergencies and survival kits, too- like rugged camping and bushcraft. We actually encourage it- don’t let them sit in your bags and kits without knowing how they work or how to use them properly.
Sources & References
All of our experience and the testing we do to determine the best water purification tablets is useless without listing our research sources and references. We leaned on these for the book knowledge that we paired with our hands-on testing and practical military and prepping experience:
Benzoni, T., et al. (2023). Bleach Toxicity. StatPearls. Treasure Island, FL. Accessed through the National Library of Medicine. (Source)
Gerba, C., et al. (1997). Efficacy of iodine water purification tablets against Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts. Wilderness & Environmental Medicine. Volume 8, Issue 2, Pages 96 – 100. (Source).
Nakamura, S., et al. (2002). The impact on health and risk factors of the diarrhoea epidemics in the 1998 Bangladesh floods. Public Health. Volume 116, Issue 2, Pages 68 – 74. (Source)
Powers, E. (1993). Efficacy of Flocculating and Other Emergency Water Purification Tablets. Army NATICK Research Development and Engineering Center. (Source)
Schaub, S., et al. (1992). Evaluation of the Military Effectiveness of Chlor-Floc Water Purification Tablets for Treatment of Waterborne Micro-Organisms. Army Biomedical Research and Development Lab. Fort Detrick, MD. (Source)
Conclusion
Water is essential to survival, so you’ll need several ways to store, collect, and treat water in a wide range of situations. Whether you are staying put to bug in or hitting the road to bug out, water purification tablets should be a part of your survival kit.
To go along with solid treatment tablets, you should also consider a few other water storage solutions:
- Best Rain Barrel for Prepping and Emergency Water Storage
- Best Siphon for Pumping Water, Gas, and Other Liquids
- How to Store & Treat Water for Emergencies
See more of our expert-written guides, resources, and reviews in your search results – add TruePrepper as a preferred source.
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When you say Membrane filtering does not produce potable water, are you including things like RO membranes and the Grayl products?