The availability of sustainable safe drinking water is one of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The world is on schedule to meet the MDG to ‘halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water in 2000’. However, present technologies may still leave more than 600 million people without access to safe water in 2015. The objective of the present article is to present a concept for universal water filters primarily made of metallic iron (Fe0) and sand. The concept of Fe0/sand filters is based on a combination of: (i) recent developments in slow sand filtration and (ii) recent progress in understanding the process of contaminant removal in Fe0/H2O systems. The filters should be made up of more than 60% sand and up to 40% Fe0. The actual Fe0 proportion will depend on its intrinsic reactivity. The most important question to be answered regards the selection of the material to be used. The design of the filter can be derived from existing filters. It appears that Fe0/H2O based filters could be a technology with worldwide applicability.

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