How do I check my water filter?
Become an explorer and perform three standard tests! You can invite the whole family to the mini lab, the reagents are completely safe. Interested? Let's find out.
What's wrong with the water in the tap?
Rust and hardness are "popular" but not the most serious problems, they are not toxic.
Chlorine, on the other hand, remains a poison in a glass of water and in a cup of tea, even when you can't smell it.
Many dangerous impurities are colorless, odorless, and tasteless.
They are not removed by boiling, but instead form more toxic compounds.
Hardness
Hard water is the invisible thief of your budget, time and beauty. It's scale, appliance breakdowns, dull hair, dermatitis, high detergent consumption, and unleavened food and drink.
Rust
Worn out water systems or high levels of iron in the water in the region cause a lot of trouble. In addition to equipment deterioration and stained fabrics, rust causes allergies, intestinal and hormonal disorders.
Chloroform
Chloroform and other organochlorine compounds are always present in chlorinated water. Organochlorine compounds are formed when active chlorine interacts with organic substances in water (bacteria are also made up of organic substances). These compounds are hundreds of times more toxic than chlorine itself, and are often carcinogens and mutagens. Standing water is ineffective, and boiling chlorinated water only speeds up the reaction.
Heavy Metals
Industry and old pipes "enrich" drinking water with heavy metals, including lead, copper and mercury. They cannot be removed at water treatment plants or detected at home for taste and color. They accumulate imperceptibly in the body, leading to severe disorders of all its systems.
Microbiological contamination
The peculiarity of these "impurities" is the ability to explosively increase concentrations if there is insufficient treatment at water treatment plants or if water is contaminated repeatedly in many kilometers of urban utility systems. Sewage, agriculture, landfills and old pipes are major sources of bacterial and viral contamination. Chlorine effectively reduces this threat, while, for example, parasite cysts and mold are resistant to both chlorine and boiling.
Pesticides
More chemicals mean more crops. Poisons are used to fertilize and protect against insects, rodents, weeds and fungi. They are also used in cities, roads and woodlands. They get into water intakes with the rains and provoke a spectrum of diseases from allergies to cancer, diabetes and fetal birth defects.
Medication
Pills are not 100% absorbed, entering new cycles of hidden consumption through the sewer system. Antibiotics increase the resistance of pathogens, contributing to the emergence of "superbacteria". Hormones, even in small concentrations, have been shown to change the sex of fish populations. The effects on humans have yet to be evaluated.
But the water must meet sanitary standards, is that not enough?
Treatment level - basic
Municipal water treatment is always a compromise between safety and economy. Reagents precipitate impurities, but also contaminate the water itself - aluminum, active chlorine and even more harmful chlorogenic and organochlorine compounds end up in your faucet. Purifying water to a level that is wholesome and tasty is a personal choice for the consumer.
Safe, but not harmless
Sanitary standards indicate limits of impurities that do not allow acute poisoning. However, there are no safe concentrations of, for example, heavy metals. They accumulate in the body for years, increasing the overall toxic load and leading to severe disease. In addition, tolerance to pollutants varies from person to person.
Deep treatment is impractical
Only a few percent of tap water is used for drinking, which means that water treatment standards are not based on biological ideals, but on technical capabilities. Some substances transit through water treatment plants that cannot contain them - heavy metals, nitrogen-containing compounds, radionuclides.
Repeated contamination of clean water
With pressure fluctuations in the water mains, bacteria and viruses quickly enter the stream from the environment, even through small damage to the pipes. Their degradation also causes iron, manganese, copper, zinc and sometimes lead and antimony to enter the water.
How does a water filter help filtration?
1) Reliable and maximally complete removal of low concentrations of harmful substances throughout the life of the filter. Among them:
- chlorine
- organic and organochlorine compounds
- heavy metal cations
- insoluble impurities
2) Reduction of high concentrations of harmful substances to a safe level in case of an accident.
The better the design of the filter and the more effective the sorbents, the deeper the purification. At the same time externally filters may look the same.
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Activated carbon is in all standard filters to reduce chlorine and organic matter concentrations. Important: The finer the pellets, the greater the contact area with water and the higher the quality of purification. Similar filters with different size granules will give different degree of purification even from chlorine. |
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The ion-exchange resins in standard filters trap heavy metal cations. Important: Effective for water softening, but have low selectivity for heavy metals, that is, they do not retain them well |
If everyone has it, how is AquaHomeGroup's shower filters different?
AquaHomeGroup shower filters use more than just premium quality coconut charcoal. AquaHomeGroup is the only manufacturer that creates blends of several high performance components.
The charcoal granules in the shower filters are so small that if you fill them up "normally", the water will either not flow or flow very slowly. At the same time, the finer the charcoal, the more contact area and deeper filtration. This and several other issues are solved by the hydrophilic, fibrous sorbent that AquaHomeGroup uses in all sorption shower filters.
The main difference between AquaHomeGroup is that the company itself develops fibrous sorbents specifically for domestic shower water purification.
The ion-exchange fiber contained in all AquaHomeGroup shower filters irreversibly binds heavy metal ions on a surface that is 33 times larger than standard ion-exchange sorbents.
The use of fiber mixed with granular sorbents has four important effects:
1) chemical: the sorption mixture more effectively removes heavy metals due to chelate properties.
2) physical: the diameter of ion-exchange resin granules is 0.7 mm, fiber diameter is 0.001 mm. The area of contact with pollutants is 100 times larger, which means better purification.
3) microbiological: silver in active ionic form is safely fixed due to the same chelate properties.
4) synergistic: thanks to the fiber that structures the pellets, it is possible
- use of fine carbon and fine ion exchange resin without increasing the filter resistance.
- organize the efficient transport of water inside the shower filter - water passing along the hydrophilic fibers evenly washes the granules of carbon throughout the volume of the mixture.
The result is effective cleaning. And it's easy to prove it!
"Quiet, there's an experiment going on!"
TEST 1 "METHYLENE BLUE OR PESTICIDES"
The procedure for testing the quality of activated carbons is described in a number of standards:
- ASTM International
- Japan Industrial Standards
- National Standard
All of these standards prescribe the use of methylene blue (MB) to determine the sorption capacity of carbons.
Methylene blue
- an organic substance that gives an intensely colored solution and is an organic positively charged (cation) molecule.
- is actively sorbed by activated carbon as an organic substance and by ion-exchange materials as a cation - i.e. the same way as heavy metal ions are sorbed.
- in everyday life MB: antiseptic for burns and inflammatory diseases, antidote for poisoning, bactericide in aquariums.
The main sense of using MB is in the clarity of the result:
- MB is perfectly sorbed by activated carbon, which is part of all water purifiers.
- MB has excellent extinction, which means it can easily be seen with the naked eye, even at concentrations of less than 1%.
- The chemical behavior of MB in relation to sorbents (carbon and ion exchange resin) is similar to organic molecules, the structure of the MB molecule is similar to pesticides.
- Positively charged cations of MB are sorbed by ion-exchange resins, repeating the pattern of capture of heavy metal ions, which are not identified by color, odor or taste.
All these properties make MB a convenient, safe and easy to interpret model substance for your home experiment. Therefore, if the water remains clear at the end of the experiment, it means that it is 99% purified.
To get your water filter "out of the water," take:
- Methylene blue vial (50 ml) for aquarists, sold in pet stores and contains 0.3 g of dye.
- Solution for the test: for a solution with a concentration of 50 mg/L, dilute this vial in 6 L of water.
- New test shower The concentration of 50 mg/l is considered high and simulates the behavior of the filter in an emergency situation.
- Prepare filters according to manufacturer's instructions.
- Filter solution and compare results.
The experiment will answer two questions:
- How quickly and qualitatively the sorbents absorbed MB as a "conditional pollutant".
- How successful is the design of the shower filter and how tightly the sorbent itself was placed in it. After all, even if the sorbent is effective, but easy to channel effect and the water flushes the channels in it - contaminants will be detained less effectively.
If the water after the filter is visually clear - congratulations! This filter is 99.99% effective
If the water retained a blue hue even after filtering, it means that it remained not only dye, but similar to it ions of lead, mercury, copper and other toxic impurities.
TEST №2 "HEMATITE AND BACTERIA"
Hematite suspension particles are commensurate with bacteria. Let's look together at how microfiltration using a hollow fiber membrane handles them.
AquaHomeGroup shower filters preserve the mineral composition of the original water and provide absolute protection against bacteria and clean without chemical bactericides.
Shower filters with hollow fiber membranes keep out even plant pollen, which, like chlorine, its derivatives and other dangerous impurities, can be one of the causes of allergic reactions in adults and children.
TEST №3 "RUST"
Rusty water sooner or later visits every home, frightening by its rich color and characteristic odor. This is not surprising, because iron is the most common metal in the Earth's crust after aluminum. How to be sure that the filter really copes with this ubiquitous problem is answered in the following experiment.
AquaHomeGroup filters protect against bacteria even in rusty water.
Tap water is one of the benefits of civilization, which has a downside. Using water from the tap safely is not too difficult, just take care of a water shower filter that is suitable for you.