Nutrition Article | Water Purification Technology - Do You Know All These Different Methods Of Water Purification?More Than Articles

Water Purification Technology - Do You Know All These Different Methods Of Water Purification?

Although human beings need water even more than they need food, the world's natural water supply is largely not fit for human consumption and needs to therefore be purified.

Water needs to be purified to remove various potentially harmful things for human beings, including: bacteria; viruses; algae; fungi; Cryptosporidium (a protozoan pathogen which causes a diarrhea-like sickness); Giardia lamblia (a flagellated protozoan parasite which colonizes and reproduces in human beings' small intestines and leads to a person getting "beaver fever" or "backpacker's diarrhea"); Escherichia coli; dirt and sand; heavy metals such as lead, chromium, copper, magnesium, cadmium, or silica; calcium; hydrogen sulfide; and any industrial chemicals that may cause severe sickness or death in humans.

It's easy to see that the water supply is both precious and potentially deadly to human beings. Scientists have devised numerous water purification methods to address the need for water purification.

One method is the use of UV radiation. A transparent sleeve is placed on a mount and water from a stream or river passes through a flow chamber, by which UV rays are admitted and absorbed into the stream or river. The UV radiation rearranges the DNA of viruses and bacteria and renders them incapable of reproduction, which is essentially death for them. They are now harmless to humans.

With the method of water filtration, different water filters may be emplaced in the water delivery system or at the point where the water flows out of a faucet for human consumption. Different filters have different main purposes and different strengths and weaknesses, and professionals should advise residents of what kinds of filters they should use.

Ultrafiltration is used to remove particulates in the 0.002 to 0.1 micron range within the water supply by forcing the water to pass through a semipermeable membrane which does not allow the particulates to pass through but does allow the flow of the water. The flow of the water also constantly cleans off the membrane of the particulates it catches.

The reverse osmosis water purification process works like ultrafiltration but is designed to remove a different and greater range of things from the water, such as excess chlorine, dirt, and the "hard water" elements.

Water softening involves emplacing specialized filters that remove calcium and magnesium, which if found in too great an amount make "hard water". Hard water can cause a few different problems, and as far as human health it can cause severe stomach upset and may lead to digestive problems.

Deionization systems consist of wall-mounted, plumbing-connected cylindrical cartridges in the home in rooms with a sink or tub. In basic terms, hydrogen ions are exchanged for metallic ions in the water supply; then, this treated water passes through a second set of cylinders. Now an anion exchange material consisting of replaceable hydroxyl anions and fixed irreplaceable cations makes the water non-acidic and fit for consumption. These systems are among the cheapest but they require much cleaning.

Powdered activated carbon treatment (PAC) uses the sprinkling of "water hating" but "oil loving" carbon powders (different formulations filter out different things) to make different unwanted substances get "captured" by the oily surface layer (water and oil don't mix) while the clean water flows on underneath the oil and to the tap.

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