Material scientists at UNSW Sydney have come up with a lead-free brass alloy to replace traditional plumbing brass materials that have been shown to leach lead into drinking water.

The breakthrough alloy, which the group has named ‘bright brass’, has been designed to retain all the advantages that lead provides to brass for its manufacturing but without the toxicity.

Dr. Kevin Laws from the UNSW School of Materials Science and Engineering says he and his research group had developed a ‘high-entropy’ alloy system very similar to brass and bronze in 2014. And with the growing concern about lead from brass fittings dissolving in household drinking water, the researchers turned their attention to creating a lead-free brass alloy.

“Developing a viable alternative to standard plumbing fixtures and hardware became a high priority, particularly when it became known how widespread lead contamination in New South Wales drinking water is – with reports that 56 per cent of households in NSW are contaminated,” Dr. Laws said.

“Not only is this an issue for Australian health but also the nation’s IQ as lead has an impact on intelligence.”

A 2016 Macquarie University study that tested samples of drinking water extrapolated that 56 per cent of Australian households have drinking water containing lead, while eight per cent exceeded the limit of 10 micrograms per litre set in the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.

Low level lead poisoning has been associated with reductions in IQ, poor attention spans and aggressive behaviour among children.

The UNSW researchers, who created a company called Advanced Alloy Holdings to commercialise its alloy system, needed to find a replacement for lead in brass fittings without losing its main advantages. Up until now, lead has played an important role in how brass plumbing parts are manufactured.

“The lead forms tiny globules, like oil in water, which can be seen under the microscope,” Dr. Laws said.

“These globules provide lubrication, just like lead in leaded petrol, which helps with ‘free machining’ and associated manufacturing processes, as well as helping the brass to seal once in service.”

With a view to developing lead-free brass with similar lubricating particles, Advanced Alloy Holdings was provided with a $15,000 Techvoucher grant from the NSW Government’s Boosting Business Innovation Program to conduct a research project with UNSW. Dr. Warren McKenzie, CEO of Advanced Alloy Holdings, said the project was a working success.

“Within a few months, the UNSW team delivered an alloy which can be made by existing manufacturers to solve a water contamination problem that has affected Australians for more than a century,” Dr. McKenzie said.

The key to the discovery was that the new particles to replace lead – still under wraps by the team while the final products are being developed – meet all these criteria.

“This project has been successful achieving a proof-of-concept thanks to the support of the Boost program,” Dr. Laws said.

“We have successfully cast bright brass that includes safe, lubricating particles that form as the alloy cools down after casting. Our new alloys are silver in colour to allow for better identification for these lead-free applications. They are cost-competitive and perform mechanically similarly, if not better, than leaded brass.”

NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Small Business John Barilaro said the project was an example of how the NSW Government’s $18 million Boosting Business Innovation Program was bringing great business and academic minds together to create new products and ideas.

“It’s all about entrepreneurs tapping into top-notch research provided by the university sector,” Mr Barilaro said.

“As a government we want to be doing everything we can to create the right environment for people to have the confidence to launch a business idea, and then get the support they need to make sure it succeeds.

“I look forward to seeing the potential contribution this product could make to improving the lives of people living in NSW,” he said.

Dr. Laws says the last stage of the project is to complete machining and manufacturing trials to see exactly how much better they perform.

He says that such is the extent of the leaded brass in Australian plumbing systems, that change to safer components will be a long and slow process.

“There is no legislation in Australia which bans the use of lead in brass fittings, with standards allowing up to 4.5 per cent lead content in brass alloys used in plumbing, while the US and Canada limit its composition to 0.25 per cent, some 18 times smaller,” Dr. Laws said.

“The solution is not just replacing taps, but the entire aging plumbing network leading to your home. New legislation will only prevent extra lead being added to the network or as town-water infrastructure is upgraded to lead-free.”

Dr. Laws thinks the bright brass products may be available in a year once the R&D process is complete. Already, the company has been approached by others who are watching the lead-free plumbing space with interest.

Original Source: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-alloy-problem.html

Original Date: Nov 29 2018

Written By: Lachlan Gilbert

There are different properties of soft water and hard water. Hard water has more magnesium and calcium, while soft water sometimes has more sodium.

Properties of Soft Water

(Newswire.net — November 19, 2018) — Soft water is water that has reduced concentrations of ions and especially has reduced ions of Magnesium and Calcium, but the question is – what are the properties of soft water? Other than its ion components soft water has different properties. However, before looking at the features, lets define soft water.

Properties of Soft Water

What is Soft Water?

As water flows on the ground, it carries minerals as well as other particles along its path forming hard water which is over 85 % of USA water supply. Due to this, soft water flows in very few homes in the USA as compared to hard water. Although hard water has a fresh taste, it results in plumbing issues, soap scum among other problems.

Soft water may as well be utilized to describe water produced by the process of softening water. In these situations, the water may have increased levels of bicarbonate or sodium ions. Since soft water has reduced calcium ions, there is no foaming of soaps, and when doing the laundry, no soap suds are formed. In the same way, soft water does not produce any calcium deposits in the water heating systems.

Basics of Water

While it passes through elements, it carries along aspects on the way such as naturally occurring metals as well as minerals and human-made substances like chemicals and pesticides. The water supplied to our homes is typically treated, thus getting rid of unwanted particles; therefore, it is fit for human consumption. The most popular minerals picked by water are magnesium and calcium. The amounts of these minerals classify water as soft or hard.

Chemical Composition

Soft water has 0 – 17.1 parts per million of hardness elements. Because of the comparative absence of these minerals, soft water has increased sodium components.

Typically, soft water is slippery. It might have a salty taste because of dominant sodium content. Soap, as well as detergent, does not form foam if used in massive amounts. Soft water does not leave any mineral deposits in the shower, or dishes. Extremely soft water leaks metals like copper and lead from pipes, plumbing fittings which lead to the water having a metallic taste and smell. The increased metal substance will be dangerous for your pipes and your health if it surpasses the EPA guidelines.

Pros

Soft water has many benefits many of which are sourced from reducing the hardness minerals levels. Hard water makes laundry dingy, soap scum, water spots as well as scale. Equally, softer water lessens if not eradicates these issues. It escalates the plumbing efficiency performance by getting rid of the scale build-up.

It encourages the proficiency of appliances that are water –powered or water-filtered by getting rid of the additional work that the machines do when minerals are present. It needs reduced soap or detergent, which saves you cash.

Cons

The absence of hardness elements escalates the amount of sodium. Individuals with respiratory or heart issues and sodium intolerance should not drink soft water. In case you install a water –softening system at your house, numerous manufacturers bypass the cold-water drinking system and fix it on on-drinking sources at home. Soft water should as well never be sued for plants and gardens since it has increased sodium content.

Conclusion

There are a few properties of soft water that differentiate it from hard water. Hard water tends to have more magnesium and calcium, while soft water can sometimes have more sodium. Hard water is also more harsh on your plumbing. These are key differences between hard and soft water.

Original Source: https://newswire.net/newsroom/blog-post/00105884-properties-of-soft-water.html

Original Date: November 20, 2018

Written By: Featured Articles

Some researchers think putting lithium in our water could save lives.

Carla Gottgens/Images/Bloomberg Creative Photos

Lithium is a potent psychiatric drug, one of the primary prescribed medications for bipolar disorder. But it’s also an element that occurs naturally all over the Earth’s crust — including in bodies of water. That means that small quantities of lithium wind up in the tap water you consume every day. Just how much is in the water varies quite a bit from place to place.

Naturally, that made researchers curious: Are places with more lithium in the water healthier, mentally? Do places with more lithium have less depression or bipolar or — most importantly of all — fewer suicides?

A 2014 review of studies concluded that the answer was yes: Four of five studies reviewed found that places with higher levels of trace lithium had lower suicide rates. And Nassir Ghaemi, the Tufts psychiatry professor who co-authored that review, argues that the effects are large. High-lithium areas, he says, have suicide rates 50 to 60 percent lower than those of low-lithium areas.

“In general, in the United States, lithium levels are much higher in the Northeast and East Coast and very low in the Mountain West,” he told me on a new episode of the Vox podcast Future Perfect. “And suicide rates track that exactly — much lower suicide rates in the Northeast, and the highest rates of suicide are in the Mountain West.”

If you apply that 50 to 60 percent reduction to the US, where about 45,000 people total died by suicide in 2016, you get a total number of lives saved at around 22,500 to 27,000 a year. That’s likely too high, since you can’t reduce suicide rates in places that are already high-lithium. Ghaemi’s own back-of-the-envelope calculation is that we’d save 15,000 to 25,000.

Ghaemi and a number of other eminent psychiatrists are making a pretty remarkable claim. They think we could save tens of thousands of lives a year with a very simple, low-cost intervention: putting small amounts of lithium, amounts likely too small to have significant side effects, into our drinking water, the way we put fluoride in to protect our teeth.

The case for skepticism on lithium

The size of the numbers Ghaemi is claiming should make you skeptical: Those are huge, arguably implausibly huge, effects. In 2015, the Open Philanthropy Project, a large-scale grantmaking group in San Francisco, shared an analysis with me implying that if two specific studies were right, a “small increase in the amount of trace lithium in drinking water in the U.S. could prevent > 4,000 suicides per year.” That’s significant, but far short of 15,000 to 25,000.

And while Ghaemi is very enthusiastic about the potential of groundwater lithium, other researchers are more wary. A comprehensive list of lithium studies, updated just last month, shows that while many studies find positive effects, plenty more found no impact on suicide or other important outcomes. In particular, a large-scale Danish study released in 2017 found “no significant indication of an association between increasing … lithium exposure level and decreasing suicide rate.”

The Open Philanthropy Project, which had previously been quite interested in new research on lithium, states on its website that the study “makes us substantially less optimistic” that trace lithium really helps guard against suicides.

Just this year, a study using health care claims data in the US found that greater amounts of trace lithium in the water didn’t predict lower diagnoses of bipolar disorder or dementia. That’s a different outcome than suicides, but also suggests that low doses of lithium might not have a profound effect.

Why this hasn’t been tried

These recent studies have made me less confident in the link between lithium and lower suicide rates than I was when I first encountered Ghaemi’s research. But it’s such a cheap intervention, and the odds of serious side effects sound low enough, that it seems worth a try.

At the very least, I’d love for some governments to conduct real, bona fide experiments on lithium. Maybe a state could randomly add lithium to some of its reservoirs but not others, or, conversely, a high-lithium state could try removing it from the water. There are serious ethical questions about doing experiments like this that affect whole populations, but if lithium’s effect is real and we don’t pursue it because we lack compelling enough evidence, thereby endangering thousands of people — that’s an ethical problem too.

But no study like that has been conducted. And if you want to know why, you should consider the case of fluoride.

As you probably know, putting fluoride in our drinking water dramatically reduced tooth decay, by around 25 percent per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But as you likely also know, the initial rollout of fluoride in the 1940s and 1950s was intensely controversial.

Jesse Hicks, a science journalist who wrote a great history of the fluoride wars, told me on this week’s Future Perfect podcast that the backlash started in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, with a local gadfly named Alexander Y. Wallace who was convinced the substance was poison, and who wrote a parody song called “Goodnight, Flourine” to the tune of the folk song “Goodnight, Irene.”

From there, the conspiratorial, far-right John Birch Society became convinced that fluoride was a Communist plot; the Ku Klux Klan came out against fluoride too. “I think part of the longevity of this controversy has to do with the way it can activate so many different biases and prejudices,” Hicks told me. “As soon as you start talking about putting something in the water supply you have small or anti-government people responding very vigorously against that.”

The absurd controversy continues to this day. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the wildly popular, wildly irresponsible TV doctor, has brought on a fluoride conspiracist — Erin Brockovich of Julia Roberts movie fame — to sow fear and disinformation.

If that’s the reaction to an effort to improve dental health, just imagine the public outcry against a major push for adding lithium to the water. The rap against fluoride, mocked in movies like Dr. Strangelove, is that it’s a mind-control plot. But putting lithium in the water would actually be a mind-control plot: It would be a concerted effort by the government to put mind-altering chemicals in the water supply to change the behavior of the citizenry. And I say that as someone who thinks that, if it works, that it would be a great idea! Preventing suicide is really important, but it does require changing how people think, a tiny bit.

So figuring out if, and how well, trace lithium in the water works is only half the battle. Advocates would then have to win over a very, very skeptical public.

Hicks thinks we need a rock-solid, impenetrable scientific case if we’re going to do it. The science so far is promising, but not firm enough. “When you start making it a public health policy, you activate all of these other considerations that make it that much harder to make it happen,” he says.

Original Source: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/24/18010592/future-perfect-podcast-lithium-drinking-water-suicide

Original author: Dylan Matthews

Published Date: Oct 24 2018

Wondering why your water smells funny, tastes bad, or stains your plumbing fixtures, cookware, dishes and laundry? Read on!

• Funky Water

  1/8
  

  Many Americans take clean water for granted. Sometimes, however, the water coming out of the faucet may have problems—discoloration, bad taste, odors or even unseen bacteria. This is especially common in older homes or homes with well water. Here are some of the most common water problems and practical ways you can address them.

  Photo: istockphoto.com

• Hard Water

  2/8
  

  Problem: Excess calcium and magnesium—two minerals found in all natural water supplies—leads to water “hardness.” Hard water causes lime scale to build up in pipes, decreasing their efficiency and sometimes causing permanent damage.

  Management: Try a home water softener that works by “ion exchange,” which runs water through a softening appliance filled with a sodium solution; essentially, sodium replaces the calcium and magnesium in the water.

• Iron (and Manganese)

  3/8
  

  Problem: Iron and manganese, often found in ground water supplies, give water a cloudy or rusty appearance. They also cause dark brown or rust-colored stains on plumbing fixtures, cookware and laundry, and have a metallic or astringent taste.

  Management: A conventional water softener can remove up to 5 PPM of ferrous iron, but some have specialized iron removers that target this element. Oxidizing filters and colloidal iron filters provide even heavier duty coverage.

  Photo: istockphoto.com

• Hydrogen Sulfide

  4/8
  

  Problem: When hydrogen sulfide is present, water smells like rotten eggs or sulfur. This colorless gas is extremely corrosive to metal pipes, turning them black and eventually causing leaks.

  Management: Multi-stage filtration is necessary to remove hydrogen sulfide, starting with chlorination, then a sedimentation and aeration filter, and finished with an activated carbon filter to remove excess chlorine.

  Photo: istockphoto.com

• Bad Taste and Odor

  5/8
  

  Problem: Organic matter in surface water supplies can cause musty, moldy or fishy tastes or odors. Sulfates in the water—or leaking into the water supply from a sewer or septic system—can also lead to this problem.

  Management: Except for the “rotten-egg” odor caused by hydrogen sulfide, activated carbon filters can solve most taste and odor issues. In extreme cases, alleviating taste and odor problems may require oxidizing filters. Call in a professional for a much more serious problem: a septic or sewer leak.

  Photo: istockphoto.com

• Sediment

  6/8
  

  Problem: Sediment and turbidity refer to fine particles of sand, scale, clay, rust, dirt or organic materials that are suspended in the water. They’re often present in water drawn from ponds, lakes or rivers.

  Management: Sediment filters are readily available at most home centers and plumbing stores. When the sediment is caused by sand, try a slow-sand filter.

  Photo: istockphoto.com

• Bacterial Contamination

  7/8
  

  Problem: Coliform bacteria, most often found in lakes or wells, normally do not appear in drinking water. But their presence indicates that other disease-causing microbes may be contaminating the water.

  Management: Treating bacterial contamination requires a disinfectant method, most commonly chlorination. Consult a trained professional to determine the source of the contamination and to fix the problem.

  Photo: istockphoto.com

• Lead

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  Problem: Most lead contamination in the water supply is caused by lead solder, which joined and sealed copper pipes in older homes. Lead dissolves readily in drinking water, and is tasteless, odorless and colorless, making this extremely dangerous metal difficult to detect.

  Management: Ion-exchange water softening systems, reverse osmosis systems or carbon block filtration can remove the lead. If you suspect lead contamination or live in an older home, contact a professional to analyze your water. Drink bottled water until that professional gives you the “all clear.”

  Original Source: https://www.bobvila.com/slideshow/7-common-water-problems-and-their-cures-46072#lead-in-water-symptoms

  Original Author: Donna Boyle Schwartz

High-quality water is essential for a variety of industrial finishing processes, but is too often overlooked. Discover where reverse osmosis fits into your finishing operation, including what it is, how it works and how to get the most out it.

Industrial-size reverse osmosis units like the ones pictured here are used to generate pure water for a variety of finishing processes.

For several surface finishing processes, a high-quality water supply is key to success. Reverse osmosis (RO) is one water treatment technique that has proven itself as a means of not only maintaining water quality but also as a way to reclaim valuable process chemicals and reduce fresh water usage.

Especially with industrial companies that go through large volumes of water, RO systems provide extreme cost savings for water and sewer costs as well as savings on additional labor and manpower required to meet pollution compliance standards.

Manufacturer and industry leader of wastewater and water treatment systems, Therma-Tron-X (TTX) provides this brief guide for those hoping to better understand or optimize their units.

Reverse Osmosis Use Cases

By applying pressure, the feed water is forced through the semi-permeable membrane.

RO is used to remove dissolved solids and contaminates from water used in both commercial and industrial applications by applying pressure to move water through a semi-permeable membrane.

In comparison to other methods of filtration such as nanofiltration, ultrafiltration or microfiltration, reverse osmosis can effectively remove contaminants as small as 0.0001 microns, including salts, ions and other materials.

Systems can be configured to treat and recycle wastewater generated by:

• Metal finishing and plating operations
• Circuit board and semiconductor manufacturing
• Automotive manufacturing
• Food and beverage production
• Groundwater and landfill leachate processes

RO systems can be used to remove low-molecular-weight resins and dissolved salts from things like electrocoat paint ultrafiltrate and can play a major role in reducing the consumption of DI water and generating less wastewater. It can be used to create a closed-loop system for a variety of surface finishing applications.

In electrocoat applications, it is not uncommon for a process to use a 2^nd stage pass of RO in order to polish the product within tight tolerances. Afterwards, the water can be re-used in any part of the cycle. The systems can also help electrocoaters with paint recovery, reducing amount of wasted paint.

In this example of a pretreatment and ecoat line, pure water is required for several steps in the process.

For electroplating processes, RO systems have also played a role in the recovery of metals from plating rinse waters, which requires extremely high-quality water. Not only do platers face harsh requirements for metal discharge limits, but they must pay close attention to wastewater regulations.

High-quality water is especially important from a corrosion-performance perspective for pretreatments, as it is the last to touch the part before it’s coated and sealed. Having that water free of contaminants is very important for part quality and corrosion prevention. For example, powder coating usually requires a pretreatment to clean the part, which is then dried off before applying the powder. Poor water quality can result in water spots left from dissolved solids on the part after it leaves pretreatment, and this can lead to corrosion. RO can effectively eliminate that.

Generally speaking, RO systems can accomplish three different functions:

1. Remove purified water from a feedwater stream (generating permeate)
2. Reduce volume of wastewater in specific applications (minimizing concentrate)
3. Selectively separate small ions and molecules from process stream

As a more cost-efficient alternative to deionization (DI) and ion-exchange systems, RO membranes can remove more bacteria and suspended solids without the use of costly chemicals. While DI systems can produce pure water as low as 1 microseimens, most water quality requirements can be easily met by RO units.

Water Quality

Surface finishers may know that they need high-quality water for their processes. But what they might not know is what level of quality is needed and how to measure it.

Identifying contaminants in your water is the first step to treating it for your company’s specific applications. Water tests are used to measure factors such as SDI, TDS, pH, ORP conductivity and other characteristics. Your source of water can have a major impact on the performance of the membrane filter, ultimately affecting the RO system as a whole. This can vary from water source to source, from city to city.

Water contamination can take various forms. Salts in potable water, such as iron, calcium, magnesium, chlorides, sulfates, phosphates, silicates, etc. can destroy plating baths if allowed to concentrate over time.

With industrial RO systems, the feed is essentially “split” into the permeate (clean water) and the concentrate (waste water).

The rate of water recovery can be calculated by taking into consideration water costs, ideal water usage and is then balanced to projected membrane life. For instance, a system could strive to achieve 90% permeate recovery but at the cost of membrane life, which can get costly.

Not every finishing processes holds the same requirements for water purity, and not every RO system is the same. Based on your application and water purity needs, sometimes a pilot test is needed to ensure the RO system meets the needs of the operation and is implemented correctly.

Rule of Thumb: Permeate and concentrate ratios can be altered based on customer needs, but usually start in the range of roughly 70% water recovery and 30% concentrate.

First, TTX consults the customer on the type of application, whether or not there are any unique components or rigid requirements—such as with semiconductor applications that require ultra-pure water—followed by looking at footprint and space available. Then, TTX conducts some water testing with the incoming water source and uses software to make projections, checking the projected system against all of the collected data. Based on the results, they can then determine exactly how many and what kind of membranes the system will require.

Membrane Maintenance

You might think of a membrane simply as a filter, but it’s much more than that.

One of the common challenges in maintaining a RO system is cleaning or replacing membranes. RO system cleaning typically occurs between 1-4 times a year. Improper maintenance of the membranes eventually leads to membrane fouling, which can lead to higher operating pressures, higher operating costs and poor water quality. This includes removing bio-slime with a high-pH cleaning and using a low-pH cleaning to remove scale.

This cross-section demonstrates the components of a spiral wound membrane configuration, most popular for its compact design.

In addition to lowering system efficiency, excessive replacement of membranes can get costly. However, effective system installation, pretreatment and good maintenance habits can ultimately prevent system failure and minimize future maintenance requirements.

Advances in technology in the last three years have made a tremendous impact on the performance of membranes, and from a cost perspective, can lead to huge savings when compared to older or outdated membranes.

There are several different types of membrane designs available but typically, spiral wound is the most popular design because it’s the most cost effective and space efficient, offering a lot of membrane area in a small package.

The membrane surface itself consists of an ultra-thin barrier layer, a microporous substrate and a reinforcing polyester fabric, which make up the thin film composite membrane. This semi-permeable membrane is housed in a cylindrical, spiral-wound system, which carries the water feed as it moves through several layers before discharging the permeate and the concentrate.

Membranes can vary in pore size and thickness, giving a different level of salt passage and flow. It’s important to match the membrane to the design of the system because you’ll get huge differences in the performance of the membrane and ultimately the performance of the water you get out of the system.

Rule of Thumb: For every 1°C increase, the permeate flow will increase approx. 3% and the salt passage increases approx. 6%.

There are several feedwater characteristics that can affect the performance of the membranes. This includes source concentration (i.e. feed water with high limestone concentration), temperature, osmotic pressure and pH.

Temperature is particularly important for membrane performance because RO systems are often designed around your minimum water temperature as well as the maximum. The reason that range is important is because on one hand cold water requires higher driving force than warm water, so the feed pump is sized for the cold water situation. On the other, warm water allows much higher salt water passage through the membranes. So the higher the temperature, the higher the permeate flow and the higher the salt passage.

Pretreatment of the water prior to use is also a major component to membrane health. Historically, systems have used water softeners and carbon filters, but newer technology (consistent with the last 15 years) uses chemical antiscalant injections to achieve the same results.

Using chemical injections as opposed to water softeners, the total cost of ownership and maintenance is dramatically reduced. Particularly with a system requiring a heavy flow, the costs of water softeners can add up, so chemical injection has quickly become a better alternative. TTX RO systems, including those used for commercial applications, all include a chemical feed directly built in.

RO System Components and Design

Common RO units include a strainer, pressure booster pump, cartridge filter and RO membrane modules. The strainer is designed to remove suspended solids from the feed solution, protecting the pump. The booster pump increases the feed solution pressure and cartridge filters remove particulates that can clog the units.

The most simplified system comes with its own pump, it will pressurize the water coming in to your membrane array and the membrane with split the stream to get permeate out (which may go to a storage tank for use later) and the concentrate, which is then disposed.

This is an example of a common reverse osmosis system and some of the system components it requires.

Looking at all aspects of design and requirements, RO systems are known for being cost-efficient. Units are compact, lowering installation costs. Power is only needed for the pump, lowering energy costs. Operation and labor requirements are minimal, further reducing costs.

Industrial units are designed prevent scaling when used as a medium in heat exchange functions. TTX Environmental RO systems automatically compensate for temperature and also integrate a chemical feed system for antiscalant and chlorine reduction.

With TTX, customers can specify exactly the components they need, including everything from membranes to PLCs and HMIs that fit the customer’s specs.

Here are a few questions to ask for your RO system design:

• What is the source of the feed water (well, municipal etc.)
• What is the feedwater temperature, does this fluctuate? (min. and max.)
• What is the feedwater pressure? (min. and max.)
• What is the daily volume of water required per day? Per hour?
• What are the water quality or purity requirements? Does it need to meet specific standards such as US EPA, ASTM, etc.?
• Where will the reject water concentrate from the RO system go?
• How much space is available for the system?

Systems that Last

Pictured here is a TTX installed industrial reverse osmosis unit with control panel.

Therma-Tron-X Environmental, a division of Therma-Tron-X, manufactures reverse osmosis units for virtually any application, commercial or industrial. These units can be used to provide essential clean water for manufacturing procedures with even the strictest requirements, all with minimal operator oversight.

TTX Environmental reverse osmosis units generate pure water for a variety of processes by separating dissolved solids from water with no carbon filters, no water softeners and with a lifetime supply of membranes. The systems use the latest in membrane and ion exchange technology. For pollution control standards, TTX Environmental helps plants meet compliance with federal, state and local discharge standards by using wastewater technology and process bath reclamation.

Original Source: https://www.pfonline.com/articles/how-to-optimize-your-reverse-osmosis-system-for-surface-finishing

Original Date: 10/22/18

• One in five UK children has eczema, which can leave the skin prone to infections
• If there is a family history, babies have up to a 60 per cent risk of developing it
• Now, researchers are looking at whether a water softener device can help them

Giving their baby a bath is a joyous part of the daily routine for many parents — but a new study is investigating whether it could be triggering eczema among infants in hard water areas.

One in five children in the UK has eczema, which can leave the skin prone to infections. If there is a family history, babies have up to a 60 per cent risk of developing it.

Now, researchers in the UK are looking at whether a water softener device — which removes calcium carbonate and magnesium, the minerals that make water ‘hard’ — could prevent babies developing eczema in the first place.

‘We know eczema can be caused by a gene mutation that causes a lack of filaggrin — a protein needed to form the skin’s protective barrier and hold in moisture,’ says Professor Carsten Flohr, a consultant dermatologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London, who is leading the study.

Baby love: Isida Pierce, pictured with her daughter, Alessia, who suffers with infant eczema

‘Yet not all babies who have this gene mutation will develop eczema and the current thinking is that there is an environmental trigger.’

Professor Flohr led a study in 2016 involving 1,100 babies, which established that those living in hard water areas, such as London, had up to an 87 per cent increased risk of eczema, compared with infants in soft water areas.

The new study will focus on 80 babies in hard water areas identified as likely to develop the condition. Half will have had a water softener installed in their home before birth. The filters will be left in place until the babies reach six months.

Eczema symptoms can begin at any time, but most occur in the first six months of life.

As well as monitoring the number of baths and products used on the babies, researchers will check their skin for water loss, pH levels, detergent deposits and bacteria. These measurements will be taken at birth, one month, three months and six months.

The trial builds on research published last year by the University of Sheffield and King’s College London, which found that hard water damages the protective skin barrier and increases its sensitivity to potential irritants in soaps and shampoos, causing inflammation and making eczema more likely.

Hard water has high levels of calcium and magnesium particles, which bind to chemicals in soaps and shampoos called surfactants — which act as detergents — making them insoluble, so they build up on the skin.

Did you know? Eczema symptoms can begin at any time, but most occur in the first six months

This disturbs the natural balance of bacteria that help maintain the skin as a physical barrier and leaves it prone to colonisation by potentially harmful bacteria that could cause infections.

‘It is during the first few days and months of life that our skin is most susceptible to damage and most at risk of developing eczema,’ says Professor Flohr, ‘so if we can reduce the risk of triggers in that time, it is possible that we could prevent eczema starting.’

Isida Pierce, 31, a marketing manager from Greenwich, South East London, enrolled her daughter Alessia in the trial, as her husband Edward, 33, who works in finance, has eczema, as well as psoriasis, another skin condition.

‘Edward has had eczema since childhood and it still flares up periodically,’ says Isida. ‘He finds it very irritating and we’re keen to do all that we can to avoid Alessia developing eczema, too.’

At five months old, Alessia has no sign of the skin complaint and the couple are hopeful that using the water softener is paying off.

Preventing eczema may also have benefits beyond maintaining healthy skin.

‘We know that when a baby has eczema, and their skin is inflamed, their immune cells are in a hyper-alert state,’ says Professor Flohr.

‘This means food particles that are carried in dust can sensitise the skin and eczema can become a portal for a food allergy. The same may also be true with grass pollen leading to hay fever.’

Justine Hextall, a consultant dermatologist at Tarrant Street Clinic, in Arundel, West Sussex, says that a trial in 2011 by the University of Nottingham, using water softeners in hard water areas in children aged between six months and 12 years with eczema, did not show a significant improvement.

‘But this trial is looking at its role in protecting the skin barrier and reducing eczema in at-risk groups,’ she says. If the trial is successful, a larger one could follow in the UK.

Original Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6304723/Is-hard-water-blame-giving-babies-eczema.html

Original Date: October 22 2018

Original Author: Jo Waters

Tap water in America has been under scrutiny recently with a handful of communities who lack access to clean drinking water from their taps. Yet most Americans – even those with presumably clean drinking water – are still guzzling down H2O that contains measurable amounts of harmful substances. The plight of Americans in cities like Flint, Michigan and Compton, California are on the extreme side of the unsafe drinking water spectrum, but they call attention to a much larger and looming problem.

Drinking water arrives in our homes through 1 million miles of pipes laid throughout the country. Many of these pipes were laid in the early to mid-20th century and consequently are outdated and beginning to fail. This is a system that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates will cost almost $400 billion to update. Americans are facing a rapidly aging water system amongst other challenges like droughts and contamination making access to clean and fresh tap water increasingly unreliable.

Water quality in America is a big picture problem that will need to be addressed by governing bodies. But in the meantime, I wanted to learn more about what was in my local water and take its quality into my own hands without relying on plastic bottles which just create more environmental problems.

Tap water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and requires cities to frequently test their water supplies and make the results available to the public. However, the EPA does allow a certain level of contaminants in these supplies. In some cases, the legal limit is above the “healthy limit”. Healthy limits are set by a non-profit organization called the Environmental Working Group. You can check your local water provider for contaminants on their website.

I did a search with my zip code and found that fifteen carcinogenic contaminants were detected in the same water that came from my tap – all within federally set limits. The five contaminants found in water from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power that were in excess of healthy limits were arsenic, bromate, chromium (hexavalent), radiological contaminants, and total trihalomethanes (TTHMs).

During tests conducted from 2010 to 2017, fifteen other contaminants were also found: 1,2,3-Trichloropropane, 1,4-Dioxane, bromide, bromochloromethane, chlorate, chlorodifluoromethane (Freon 22), chromium (total), fluoride, molybdenum, nitrate, strontium, tetrachloroethylene (perchloroethylene), trichloroethylene, trichlorofluoromethane (Freon 11), and vanadium.

If all of these chemicals and heavy metals were not enough, a study by Orb Media found that 94% of tap water in the U.S. and 93% of bottled water worldwide contained microplastics. Although there is no consensus on the effects of microplastics in humans yet; microplastics have been associated with behavioral changes and liver toxicity in animals.

Water makes up roughly 60% of the human body, 93% of blood, and 75% of muscles. How could I reliably get pure water? To significantly reduce water contamination, I invested in a reverse osmosis unit for the tap in my kitchen. A reverse osmosis filter completely eliminates all natural and synthetic toxins, microbes, debris, and minerals.

RO works by using pressure to force water molecules through a semipermeable membrane. This process flushes out everything else and leaves perfect drinking water. Most systems only cost a couple hundred dollars and require simple maintenance every six months – I felt this was a small price to pay to ensure the quality of my drinking water. Last but not least, my RO unit completely eliminated any desire for plastic water bottles – a win for my health and the environment.

Original Source: https://www.earth.com/news/tap-water-contaminants/

Written By: Bianca Vierra

Published Date: 10-10-18