Water For Health » Water Filtration

Why Aren’t You Using a Water Filtration System

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:02:25 +0000

It’s unbelieveable that there are so many substances present in your neighborhood water supply. The state and Federal government have quality standards for safe drinking water, but there are many substances that are not identified in the standard. These substances can affect the odor and taste of your water. A good strategy for getting rid of these unwanted substances is by using a water filtration system. This article will examine how a water filtration system can make your drinking water safer.

The first area of concern is the presence of harmful chemicals. Chemicals such as benzene and toluene are byproducts of chemical and manufacturing processes. Careless handling of these chemicals can result in a release into drainage systems that lead to lakes and ground water supplies. A good water filtration system can remove these harmful chemicals and make your drinking water safer. These are just some of the items to consider for your drinking water safety.

Many communities get their drinking water from lakes and reservoirs. These sources are subject to seasonal changes in water quality. Low water levels can produce conditions that increase the amount of organic matter in the water, such as algae or plants. This matter can add unpleasant odors or tastes to your water. This organic matter can be removed by a water filtration system, thereby improving the taste and smell of your drinking water.

Most people are aware of concerns with respect to drinking water that has undesired material in it, but there is also the aspect of cooking and bathing with water. Water is oftern used to rinse, steam or boil foods for preparation. We wash our hands and take showers and baths with the same water that we drink. This introduces the potential for skin reactions to undesired substances in water supply. Water filtration can be used in these areas as well to reduce or eliminate unwanted chemicals and organic matter.

Now that you know this information, you should be well prepared to research a water filtration system for your home. The best systems for water filtration remove the undesirable chemicals and organic matter, while leaving the minerals our bodies need for good health. Keep these facts in mind, and you will be able to make an informed choice that will improve the safety and health of your drinking water!

Types of Water Filtration

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:27:22 +0000

Water filtration is the process of purifying water in order to remove unwanted solids, microorganisms, gases and chemical substances. The water is passed through a medium which retains the solids and allows only water to pass through. It is important that one gets clean, purified water to avoid waterborne diseases. There are various types of water filtration. They include; ion exchange, distillation, filtration, ultra-filtration and reverse osmosis.

Distillation

In this method of water filtration, the water is heated to boiling point where it vaporizes. The vapor is then condensed and stored after it has been collected. It is beneficial since it takes away a wide range of pollutants. The main disadvantage of this type of filtration is that there could be other harmful chemicals that vaporize together with the water and these could be ingested assuming that the water is purified. These are substances that could be having the same boiling point as water. Distillation also uses too much energy.

Ion Exchange

This process involves the exchange of ions. Water is passed through bead-like spherical resin materials. The water ions are exchanged with the ions attached to the beads. This method is usually used for deionization and softening of water. However, this method of filtration works best when used together with other types of filtration such as carbon filtration. This is because it does not take away many of the microorganisms found in water.

Carbon Absorption

In this method, water passed through carbon filters gets rid of unpleasant tastes, smells, chlorine, gases, and many chemicals. Occasionally, this method gets rid of microorganisms. This type of water filtration will not have an effect on hardness of water, heavy metals and solids absorbed in water. The water collected after this method of filtration can be bettered by filtration using another method.

Ultra-filtration

In this method of filtration, water is passed through an ultrafilter which acts like a molecular sieve. It takes away dissolved molecules according to their size. It is beneficial in that it efficiently takes away many particles, microorganisms, pyroids and colloids exceeding their rated size. It also gives very high quality water and uses less energy.

Reverse Osmosis

Reverse osmosis as the name suggests, is the opposite of natural osmosis. Here hydraulic pressure is put on the concentrated solution to act against the osmotic pressure. Purified water is then collected on the lower part of the membrane. This type of filtration produces water that is purified. The water collected does not contain any salts, sugars, ions and molecules that had been dissolved before filtration. Water filtered using this method, will not have the pleasant tastes that carbon filtered water has. This method is advantageous as it needs minimal maintenance.

Ultraviolet Radiation

This method of water filtration is mainly used to kill germs. Mercury lamps producing 254nm UV light are used. The microorganisms in the water are inactivated when the DNA and proteins of their cells absorb Ultra Violet radiation.

It is advisable that one should combine two or more filtration methods to get better quality water.

Home Water Filtration System – The Top 2 Reasons Why It’s Better Than a Reverse Osmosis System

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:43:58 +0000

When it comes to selecting a water purification technology to install at your home, there is a lot of debate about the advantages and disadvantages of using a water filtration system versus using a reverse osmosis (RO) system.

In this article, I hope to shed some light on the issue, by highlighting the top two (2) reasons why I personally think that it would be a better decision to select the water filtration system.

Chlorine removal

As you probably know, public water utilities use chlorine to disinfect our tap water. Numerous medical studies dating back to the1960s that have been published over the years, all seem to agree that long term exposure to this yellow-green compound through drinking tap water, can seriously harm our health.

In addition to the findings that chrorine is linked with atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries leading to heart attacks), what’s even more terrifying is that it is also found to be linked with certain form of cancers such as bladder, rectal and breast cancers.

Now, coming back to our water purification discussion, you should know that RO systems simply cannot remove chlorine.

This fact has to do with the way that this technology works: It uses high pressure to push tap water through a membrane that has very small pores. Whatever substance contained in the water happens to have larger molecules than the size of the pores is left in the input side, while the rest (including water) passes through.

While it is true that RO units manage to remove a large range of pollutants, nevertheless they are not successful with chlorine, simply because its molecules are physically smaller than water’s.

Unlike RO units, a water filtration system is capable of removing chlorine. This is done through entrapping (either through mechanical or chemical action) it on the medium inside the filter, which is usually carbon.

Removal of minerals

Another serious disadvantage of RO systems is that, again because of the way they work, they strip our tap water from the essential minerals (like potassium, calcium and magnesium) that it contains.

As studies have shown, long-term consumption of demineralized water poses a threat for our health.

You see, this kind of water tends to be acidic, having a pH lower than 7. This has two very harmful effects:

First, responding to the lowering of pH, our body tends to pull minerals from our teeth and bones to neutralize the acid. Thus, our body is gradually stripped from minerals that are essential for our well-being.

What’s worse, scientists claim that cancer cells grow only in an acid environment. Therefore, long-term consumption of water without minerals will probably be responsible for cancer incidents.

Water filtration systems, on the other hand, do not perform any kind of demineralization as part of the water treatment.

On my website, you will find information about the particular water filtration system that I personally recommend. Its innovative technology ensures more than 99% removal of all chlorine and its harmful by-products, while it uses an ion exchange process to enrich the mineral content of your tap water. This makes it healthier and more tasteful as well.