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Pure Water Filters – How Pure Is Reverse Osmosis?

Chee — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 18:22:35 +0000

When it comes to water filtration, there are so many myths regarding carbon and reverse osmosis filtration that it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction. It’s very much like how to bring up a child, every parent will have their 2 cents worth, if not more. What I’ve done in this post is try to go back to basics and give you some foundation knowledge about how best to produce pure drinking water in your house or office.

About Carbon Filtration

Firstly, a note about carbon filters. Carbon filtration does not remove dissolved metals, fluoride and a few other things so I don’t regard them as “pure water filters”. They do a great job removing chlorine and various other toxic substances from our water but on their own they do not produce pure water. If you’re on a budget but still want to provide some form of filtration, then I would recommend a carbon filter (normally coupled with a sediment filter).

About Pure Water Filters

In my opinion, there are only two methods of producing pure water in the home and office environment – distillation and reverse osmosis filtration. Distillation is a far more expensive proposition than reverse osmosis and hence is not considered a practical option. The fact that you don’t find distillation kits in hardware and home appliance stores is proof of this. The time, energy and capital cost involved with distillation makes it a less than attractive option for the household and office environment.

This leaves reverse osmosis filtration as the only practical home and office drinking water solution.

About Reverse Osmosis Filtration Systems

Reverse osmosis works by using high air pressure to force water through a semi-permeable reverse osmosis membrane. When the contaminated water is forced against the membrane, its pores are small enough to reject even the tiniest of contaminates but allows the water molecules to pass through. If all that sounds too complicated, think of it as a filter that has tiny pores that can filter out even microscopic things we can’t see such as virus and bacteria.

It should be noted that reverse osmosis is almost always used in conjunction with sediment and carbon filtration. Reverse osmosis on its own is rather impractical as larger sediments, iron and calcium in the water will quickly deteriorate and clog the membrane requiring it to be changed frequently (too frequently for practical applications). A typical “reverse osmosis system” usually includes:

Sediment Filter – remove larger sediments such as dust, dirt, sand, rust and other particulates.
Carbon Filter – removes chlorine and volatile organic compounds (eg, paint solvents, petrol, BBQ lighter fluid, etc). Chlorine is added into our water by the water authorities to disinfect public water, whilst VOC can enter our tap water from petrol and oil spillages (we’ve seen a fair few of them in the last few years) seeping into our underground water. It’s not uncommon to have two or three stages of carbon filtration in a reverse osmosis system.
Reverse Osmosis – this usually occurs towards the end of the overall filtration process, reverse osmosis removes dissolves salts (Australia has a particularly bad salinity problem in our soil and water), dissolved metals (lead, copper, mercury, chromium, aluminum, etc) and just about anything else through its ultra-fine pores.

How Fine Are Pores In A Reverse Osmosis Membrane?

The pores within a reverse osmosis membrane is so fine that it rejects practically any particles, yet large enough to allow water molecules to pass through. Most membranes have an effective pore size of approximately 1-10 nanometers which makes it small enough to remove dissolved salts, dissolved metals, fluoride, viruses, bacteria and nearly anything else one would think of as contaminants in drinking water.

This is a rather incredible thing don’t you think? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

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Fluoridation – is it the biggest scientific fraud of this century?

Chee — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:53:55 +0000

The controversy surrounding water fluoridation has been around since its introduction in the 1940′s. Those for fluoridation say its essential to enhancing the dental health of the general public while those against the practice continue to quote numerous studies that link fluoride to various health concerns. Til this very day, the debate rages on in many western societies, including Australia.

Background On Fluoridation

The practice of fluoridation is the addition of fluoride to public drinking water in the interest of preventing dental complications such as cavities and decays. Some have dubbed the practice “mass medication”. The generally accepted facts are:

The WHO stipulates that up to 1.5 mg/L concentration of fluoride in drinking water is safe. It is accepted that ingestion of higher doses is not safe.
The positive effect on dental health is due to the topical application of fluoride in the mouth (eg, gargling, brushing teeth), rather than by ingestion.
The practice has traditionally greatly benefited children in developing countries where general dental hygiene is poor.
Studies has linked the ingestion of fluoride to various complications including osteosarcoma (childhood bone cancer) though most scientists suggest that more research needs to be undertaken.
Some studies has found improvements in dental health in some developed countries that has stopped or does not adopt the practice of fluoridation.

Where To Filter Out Fluoride:

The decision whether you want to use a water filter to remove fluoride from your tap water is a personal one.

From the evidence presented, if one was to err on the side of caution, it would seem to me that the best way to deal with fluoride in our tap water is:

Remove fluoride from drinking water.
Keep fluoride in the water used for brushing teeth and gargling.

Chosing The Correct Water Filter Setup

For most households, the above makes the decision of purchasing the correct water filter and where to place it a relatively simple one.

Within a household environment, the only practical choice for the removal of fluoride lie with a reverse osmosis filtration system. The system should be placed where drinking water is delivered. For most households, this means the kitchen tap. This will leave the other taps around the house unfiltered, meaning fluoride will still be in the tap water.

Do you agree? Do you even care about the fluoride in our tap water? Do you think the whole thing is overstated? Or are you one of those who would rather err on the safe side? Let me know by leaving your comments.

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Is Reverse Osmosis Water Bad For You?

Chee — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:05:33 +0000

There’s so much talk about what’s good for us (and what’s not). A hot topic at the moment is whether it’s good or bad to filter out the minerals in our tap water. This article does a really good job at sorting out the truth from the myths.

This article strongly suggests that if you’re eating reasonably well and you’re brushing your teeth as recommended by your dentist, reverse osmosis is still the best overall water filtration system system for your household. If you’re not eating well and not brushing your teeth, you’ll need more than a water filter to address those health issues.

The Truth About Reverse Osmosis – Is it Safe to Drink the Water?

www.squidoo.com

Are you looking to buy a water filter for yourself and your family? If so, you have probably done some research online and know some basic information about Reverse Osmosis (RO) water filtration technology. You probably still have a lot of questions too.While opinions differ greatly on the benefits… read more.

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Recycled water flowing in Perth taps?

Chee — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 19:33:05 +0000

For those that missed the debate in the mainstream media (got extensive coverage in various newspaper and on radio), here’s your chance to voice your opinion, concerns or support for recycled water.

Three Year Trial by Water Corporation

The idea of using recycled water to supply Perth’s mains water raised its head again recently with Australia’s first groundwater replenishment trial sponsored by the Western Australian government and the federal government.

The concept of recycled drinking water is not new. Moves to introduce waste water recycling has been proposed and defeated in NSW (2007) and in Queensland (2008).

The trial will run for three years and will see waste water treated at various plants in Perth’s northern suburbs before it’s eventually pumped 200m underground to be mixed with existing groundwater. The water is “stored” underground and can be taken out at a later time to be further treated and supplied to a drinking water system.

How Safe Is Recycled Water?

The Water Corporation reassures us that recycled water is safe for consumption. I have absolutely no reason to doubt that if everything worked the way it’s supposed to, then recycled water is perfectly safe for drinking. However, what we don’t hear is what will happen if something goes wrong. Let’s face it, it’s a highly complicated processes that sees waste water treated at various plants before being pumped 200m underground and then taken out again at some undetermined time to be treated and distributed into the drinking water system. How does the treated waste water being pumped underground change the ecology and quality of the underground water system? How long is the treated water going to stay underground and what can happen to it while its “stored” underground? There are a fair few questions that remains unanswered.

If anything does go wrong, it could affect a significant number of households. An article I found on The Age reported that such a scheme can supply up to 140000 homes in WA. To say the consequences could be rather high would be an underestimate.

I would be very interested to see what the general public thinks of this scheme. Do leave your comments below.

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The $1000 Water Filter That Does Everything…

Chee — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 03:02:28 +0000

Over the Christmas holiday, I had the pleasure of catching up with friends and relatives that I rarely see during the year Everyone seem to have such a busy lifestyle these days.

On one such catch-up, the topic of water filters came up. I was pleasantly surprised to see that one such friend/relative had just spent over $1000 on a water filter from a very well known multi-level marketing company that can do just about everything including kill every bacteria and virus known to man.

This has inspired me to explore the topic of “Why do we buy water filters”

Why do we buy water filters?

The top three real reasons (not perceived ones) why most of our customers buy water filters are listed below (not necessarily in any order):

To remove undesirable tastes & odour in our drinking water.
To remove undesirable metals & minerals in our drinking water (eg, lead, arsenic, other heavy metal, etc).
To treat water hardness problems caused by calcium in the mains water.

One notable absentee from this list is any demand to “remove bacteria & viruses” from drinking water. While there is a remote possibility that bacteria and viruses can survive the long journey from our dams and underground reserves to make their way into your drinking water, the chances are so low that its hardly worthwhile to worry about. To prove this point, I’m quoting figures from Drinking Water Quality Annual Report 2008-2009 (the latest available).

If you read this report, you will see on page 29 that from year 2003 to 2009, that the Water Corporation achieved 100% compliance with the removal of thermotolerant coliform from its drinking water in the metropolitan and country regions of Western Australia.

I’m not an expert on biological matters but what I can tell you is that thermotolerant coliform is an indicator of nasty living organisms in the water. As the report clearly points out though, we shouldn’t worry as the Water Corporation does a great job at killing these organisms before they reach our taps. The manner in which this is achieved may be a cause for concern and will be explored on another day but the actual living organisms – they stand very little chance of ever reaching your household taps.

The moral to the story is, before you buy a water filter, do some research to find out what you are actually trying to filter out. There are many fantastic products on the market that can do wonderful things but if it’s not filtering out the undesirables or you’re trying to filter out something that is not in your tap water, then you might as well spend the money more wisely on something else.

Related Links:

Water Corporation – Drinking Water Quality Annual Report 2008 – 2009