Water that comes to your home from a municipal source is treated for a range of chemical and biological agents. Some of them do however remain in water and can cause it to smell or taste bad, spread disease or form coatings on your electrical appliances like washing machines and dish washers.
It is therefore useful to have point of use water purification systems at home. There are several options available in the market today. You could buy a pitcher filter that you can just put on the mouth of your pitcher for the occasional need of filtered water. You could have faucet-mounted filters, under the sink filters or whole house filters that filter the water from the source before it enters your plumbing.
Whole house water filters are practical only if the water source is not reliable. This means you will need it only if you have your own bore well and are not supplied by the municipality. Also different filters remove different things from water and you could suitably pick one for drinking water and another for the shower.
Water purification can be done in many ways and filters and techniques are customized for the kind of contaminants that water must be rid of. So the methods available are Reverse osmosis, UV treatment, granular activated carbon filtering, distillation, direct contact membrane distillation and gas hydrate crystal centrifugation and the first three are more common for homes.
Reverse osmosis is a very efficient method to get rid of a large range of chemicals and organisms. RO systems have a semi permeable membrane through which water is passed from a region of lower concentration to a region of higher concentration by the application of pressure. Maintaining this membrane well is vital as otherwise algae can grow on it.
UV purifications systems remove only biological agents and not chemicals. They have a UV light-producing bulb. UV light can be obstructed with sediments and thus pre-filters are also used in these systems. They are very good at getting rid of bacteria, viruses, molds and algae.
Granular activated carbon filtering is used in faucet mounted filters, shower filters, etc. Activated carbon has the ability to adsorb a wide range of chemicals. These are also embedded with silver nanoparticles that help eliminate bacterial growth in the pores of activated carbon material.
Direct contact membrane distillation and gas hydride methods are not usually used at homes. Neither is just distillation as it doesn't remove chemicals that have a boiling point close to water's.
It is therefore useful to have point of use water purification systems at home. There are several options available in the market today. You could buy a pitcher filter that you can just put on the mouth of your pitcher for the occasional need of filtered water. You could have faucet-mounted filters, under the sink filters or whole house filters that filter the water from the source before it enters your plumbing.
Whole house water filters are practical only if the water source is not reliable. This means you will need it only if you have your own bore well and are not supplied by the municipality. Also different filters remove different things from water and you could suitably pick one for drinking water and another for the shower.
Water purification can be done in many ways and filters and techniques are customized for the kind of contaminants that water must be rid of. So the methods available are Reverse osmosis, UV treatment, granular activated carbon filtering, distillation, direct contact membrane distillation and gas hydrate crystal centrifugation and the first three are more common for homes.
Reverse osmosis is a very efficient method to get rid of a large range of chemicals and organisms. RO systems have a semi permeable membrane through which water is passed from a region of lower concentration to a region of higher concentration by the application of pressure. Maintaining this membrane well is vital as otherwise algae can grow on it.
UV purifications systems remove only biological agents and not chemicals. They have a UV light-producing bulb. UV light can be obstructed with sediments and thus pre-filters are also used in these systems. They are very good at getting rid of bacteria, viruses, molds and algae.
Granular activated carbon filtering is used in faucet mounted filters, shower filters, etc. Activated carbon has the ability to adsorb a wide range of chemicals. These are also embedded with silver nanoparticles that help eliminate bacterial growth in the pores of activated carbon material.
Direct contact membrane distillation and gas hydride methods are not usually used at homes. Neither is just distillation as it doesn't remove chemicals that have a boiling point close to water's.
About the Author:
Scott Rodgers has been excelling with plumbing works for a while now. His brilliant advice has created business opportunities for many Richmond Plumbers and Eugene Plumbers .
