Portable solutions for water treatment are required until the infrastructure for water treatment is established. One method already used for the pasteurization of liquid foodstuffs on an industrial scale is PEF (Pulsed Electric Field) sterilization. We designed, constructed and tested a portable, battery-operated PEF water treatment device and assess its effectiveness in inactivating microbes present in water. We built our device using widely available materials such as an electric fly swatter, a metal straw, a steel rod and a spark gap made of two burned-out krypton bulbs. When tested, our device had a statistically significant effect in inactivating microbes. However our study had many sources of error and further studies are needed before PEF can be properly utilized in water treatment.