Man Turns Rain Collected Into ‘insanely Pure’ Drinking Water

ANN ARBOR, MI – With a twist of a tap tucked away in a corner of his basement, Matt Grocoff fills a glass of water from a purple pipe.

It’s rainwater collected from his rooftop and channeled through gutters, but it has just passed through three stages of micro-filtration, plus carbon and UV filters.

“It’s literally hyper-filtered and incredibly clear, and while it’s legally not potable, technically,” he says, pausing to take a swig, “it is very potable. So yeah, I would let my family drink that. Anybody.”

The Ann Arbor homeowner has been drinking the water that falls on his roof since installing an elaborate rainwater harvesting system several months ago.

It’s complete with a 5,000-gallon storage tank under his lawn, collecting rain from his spouts before feeding into a five-stage filter system that makes a wall in his basement look a bit like a science lab, with a series of tubes, tanks, gauges and a digital display.

The water is “insanely pure,” Grocoff said, arguing it’s cleaner than the city’s municipal water.

“I’ve had it tested,” he said. “By any scientific standard, it’s potable water. The legal standard is different.”

In municipal water districts, plumbing codes in Michigan don’t allow piping filtered rainwater to a drinking water tap such as a kitchen faucet, but Grocoff says his water is clean enough to do so if ever allowed.

He hopes to someday see a shift toward decentralizing municipal water systems, with more homeowners embracing systems like his.

In the meantime, he has the “test tap” in his basement, from which he can drink and still meet code as long as it’s marked non-potable.

“I drink that,” he said.

With his own water system, Grocoff may be the envy of some at a time when Ann Arbor is facing various threats to its municipal water supply, including PFAS chemical contamination in the water the city draws from the Huron River, a diarrhea-causing parasite known as “crypto,” an ever-expanding dioxane plume and lingering lead risks.

“Just by its nature, being rainwater harvested off of a clean metal roof, it’s not going to have PFAS or estrogen or any of the chemicals that you might find in even the cleanest of municipal systems,” he said.

“You’re still going to have biological contaminants, E. coli or anything that comes from animals on the roof, so all of that still has to be filtered out,” he said. “But the source is cleaner. The rain is one of the cleanest source waters you can get.”

Grocoff still has city water running to his house, which he’s required to use for the shower, bathtub and sinks.

But there are legal uses for the filtered rainwater in his house, in addition to outside irrigation.

“The only place that we’re allowed to use it is in our toilets and in the washing machine,” he said, noting code requires purple pipe for lines carrying the filtered rainwater to mark it as non-potable.

A "do not drink" notice on a toilet in Matt Grocoff's house, since the water comes from his rainwater harvesting system. (Courtesy of Matt Grocoff)
A “do not drink” notice on a toilet in Matt Grocoff’s house, since the water comes from his rainwater harvesting system. (Courtesy of Matt Grocoff)

Grocoff hopes the code can be relaxed someday to allow piping it through the whole house.

“We harvest enough water from our roof that we could have all of our water needs met,” he said.

The code the city enforces is adopted by the state, so any changes need to come at the state level, city officials said.

Locally, the city has had no discussions of moving away from a centralized water system anytime in the next century, said city spokesman Robert Kellar.

The city is planning more than $280 million in upgrades to its water system over the next several years, including replacing a large portion of the water treatment plant and aging water mains, and upgrades to handle contaminants such as crypto. Ann Arbor designing new system to remove parasite in city’s water Ann Arbor is moving forward with designing a new UV disinfection system for its water treatment plant to remove a microscopic parasite from the city’s drinking water supply.

The city draws most of its water from the Huron River to a treatment plant on Sunset Road before sending it out through hundreds of miles of pipes to roughly 125,000 water customers.

Grocoff calls that a “fracture critical” system, where contamination at the source or failure at one point can cause a large portion or even the entire system to fail. As he spoke, the city was dealing with a water main break on a nearby street.

“It’s like one of those Rube Goldberg contraptions where you put a ball on one end and it does some simple task at the end, but it goes through this crazy, really fun mechanism to get there,” he said.

“If one part of that fails, if one domino fails to knock over, that task at the end doesn’t happen. The tragedy of that is what happens in a Rube Goldberg-type system like Flint.”

Grocoff argues communities could become more resilient against future threats to drinking water quality by rethinking system design. See where Ann Arbor may spend $14M replacing home water lines due to lead risks Ann Arbor is planning to spend millions replacing residents’ water lines due to lead risks.

Grocoff, a green renovation and sustainability expert, is the founding principal of THRIVE Collaborative, which is behind a solar-powered development on Platt Road, where plans call for creating a mixed-income neighborhood harvesting its own energy and water.

He’s already proving what’s possible with his own historic home on Seventh Street, with rooftop solar panels providing all his energy needs, geothermal heating and now rainwater harvesting.

Grocoff teamed with students from the BLUElab at the University of Michigan to plan, design and implement his rainwater system, with a goal of elevating the conversation about sustainable, equitable and resilient water systems for the next century. Farmington Hills-based Reynolds Water Conditioning Co. donated equipment.

The goal is to demonstrate that 100 percent of his home’s water needs can be met with captured rainwater and by recycling used household water without the use of chemicals.

“And if you can do it on one house, you can do it on the entire system,” Grocoff said.

Grocoff hopes Ann Arbor can begin a conversation about what its water system could look like in 50 or 100 years with a change in thinking. In addition to systems like his, he suggests a series of rainwater harvesting stations around the city could serve neighborhoods around them.

One need only look to nature to find the best system designs, and they’re not linear grids, Grocoff said.

“Nature relies on complex, adaptive ecosystems that are decentralized,” he said.

Though he has concerns about PFAS and he’s noticed sediment in his tap water recently, getting cleaner water wasn’t his motivation for installing a rainwater harvesting system, Grocoff said.

“I certainly drink out of taps all over the city and everything else. Ann Arbor water is generally safe,” he said.

“That said, that doesn’t take into account the future of our water system. It doesn’t take into account the ecology and what we’re doing to our watershed or sustainable systems — real deep resiliency.”

Original Source: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2019/02/ann-arbor-man-turns-rain-collected-from-rooftop-into-insanely-pure-drinking-water.html?utm_source=facebook&=mlivedotcom_sf&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2GegkSOOiEfDmZepy_cxeU7vJdh1SLiJVM-9SgqlyriTC1y3MYC32mY40

Original Date: Feb 26 2019

Written By: Ryan Stanton

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Picking The Best Water Softeners For You

Using the best water softeners can prevent expensive household problems such as clogged pipes and plumbing fixtures, dry skin and hair, stiff laundry, and cloudy glassware. These machines can make home appliances like shower heaters and coffee makers last longer and work more efficiently. They can also prevent ugly orange or brown residue from staining your bath tubs, sink and bathroom tiles.


All these problems are caused by too much calcium, iron and magnesium in your water. The ions in these elements cause water to become hard. To be able to select the best solution to eliminate hard water, you have to find out the hardness level of your household water. You can do this by calling in a water treatment company or testing your water yourself with a hard water test kit found at hardware stores.

best water softeners


Getting the right size is also an important factor in picking the best water softeners. The size of your water treatment system is determined by the amount of softening sodium beads you will need to effectively eliminate hard ions. This is calculated by balancing the level of your hard water number to the amount of sodium beads you need to swap the hard and soft ions.


It can be confusing to calculate the exact amount of softening ions you need but to cut the long story short, an average household consisting of 4 people will need about 32,000 grains of water softener. This is based on a water hardness level of 10 grains which is the average water hardness number in developed countries. Be aware though that the level of hard water may differ in various locations and water sources.


The best water softeners for specific households are also determined by personal habits of the home owners. So, one softening system may not be best for all types of people. Some people are better off getting an automatic recharging unit that recharges ions by time or by using a meter. This is convenient if you do not want to keep recharging the machine yourself. Other people with varying degrees of water usage are better off using a manual recharging softener.


Another factor that determines which softener is best is dictated by health issues. The most common and affordable type of softening system uses sodium to remove hard water. But sodium contains salt which can be bad for people with high blood pressure, a history of stroke, heart or kidney disease. For people with salt restricted diets the best water softeners would be potassium based softening systems.


Before purchasing a softening system for your home, it would be wise to consult with a professional water treatment company. This way, you won’t risk buying the wrong kind of softener. The pros can gauge what types of softeners are best for each household based on an accurate hard water test and water usage habits of the home owners. — Published on January 30, 2019

Original Source: https://thriveglobal.com/stories/picking-the-best-water-softeners-based-on-water-usage-and-hardness-levels/

Original Date: Jan 30 2019

Written By: Holly Phillips

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How to Make Softened Water Drinkable – Too Much Sodium?

How to Make Softened Water Drinkable

How to Make Softened Water Drinkable

(Newswire.net — January 3, 2019) — Altering the hardness of water might make it undrinkable, and this is mostly due to the fact that the ion exchange principle used to strip hard water of its minerals results in a spike in sodium levels. Calcium and magnesium ions all get replaced with sodium, so you find that soft water has a considerably high sodium content. So are you looking for ways on how to make softened water drinkable? This article will go into detail about all of the key points revolving around softened water and how you can ensure that you’re not drinking too much sodium.

Making Softened Water Drinkable

Sodium is a mineral we need to have in our diets. Though sodium chloride—otherwise known as table salt—is probably our biggest source of the mineral, it occurs naturally in other foods we eat. It is a vital component in certain cell functions, so having sodium in our diets is necessary for good health.

Sodium chloride is only about 40% sodium. In small or appropriate quantities, sodium is not harmful to us, but when too much sodium is present in the body, problems begin to manifest. Heart disease and high blood pressure cases have already been linked to high sodium levels in the blood, and as a result, the Water Quality Regulatory board restricts the ingestion of water with a sodium content higher than 200 mg/liter.

How Do You Ensure Softened Water is Drinkable?

First of all, it is important to note that water exists in various degrees of hardness. The harder the water is, the more minerals (calcium and magnesium) it contains, and the more sodium is produced during the ion exchange process. Softening water that is very hard will likely lead to high sodium levels.

Typically, water softeners add 46 mg/ liter of sodium for every 100 mg/liter of hardness minerals present in the water. Therefore, a softener will produce 184 mg/liter of sodium in water that contains 400 mg/liter of calcium carbonate, and that’s rather high.

To reduce water hardness, some people use osmosis water filters, which eliminate most of the minerals present in hard water. This way, the sodium levels remain low even after the softening process. Too much sodium is bad for our health, but how much is too much?

The average human being consumes 3240 mg of sodium on a daily basis—8.1 grams of salt, all of which comes from food, beverages, and water too. Water that contains 400 mg of calcium carbonate per liter is considered very hard, and using water softener will cause sodium levels to go beyond the recommended daily amount. Some places have predominantly hard water sources, and in such places, using a water softener outright is not a reliable way to make drinking water with a suitable sodium content.

Other Ways to Get Clean Drinking Water

If softening water in your region causes it to have higher than average sodium levels, you can drink it the way it is. Although if you’re looking for a way on how to make softened water drinkable, water softening experts at Clear Water Concepts mention that you should consider a hard water tap or reverse osmosis system can be just as ideal a source of drinking water provided you install filters for debris and bacterial contaminants. In some areas, drinking unsoftened water is mandatory as the alternative poses health risks due to high sodium levels. You can consult your local water company to learn about the hardness of the water in your region, and whether it is safe to drink softened water.

Bottom Line

Water is usually undrinkable due to its hardness level. That’s why many people have opted to implement water softeners in their home where the calcium and magnesium in the hard water gets replaced with sodium ions. Since soft water does have a decent amount of sodium in it, many people are skeptical of whether it’s drinkable or not. This article went over how to make softened water drinkable by using a hard water tap or reverse osmosis system to ensure that softened water is safe to drink.

Original Source: https://newswire.net/newsroom/blog-post/00106748-how-to-make-softened-water-drinkable.html

Original Date: Jan 3 2019

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Manta Rays May Lead Us to Better Water Filtration

Most water filters work by a sieve principle, in which waterborne particles that are too large to pass through a filtration membrane’s pores end up collecting on its surface. The problem is, such filters ultimately get clogged with trapped particles. The manta ray, however, has developed a work-around that could be applied to human technology.

Although manta rays may be big and weird-looking, they’re harmless to humans. They feed entirely on plankton and microcrustaceans which they filter out of seawater.

It was already known that filter-feeding fish generally do so by gulping water into their mouths, then forcing it out through their gills. On its way out, the water passes through closely-spaced rows of hook-lined appendages known as gill rakers – plankton too large to pass through the gaps between the hooks get trapped, and are subsequently swallowed.

Scientists from Oregon State University, however, recently noticed that manta rays have uniquely modified gill rakers which take the form of long, parallel arrays of leaf-like lobes (see the photo below). As expelled water flows through them, it forms into swirling eddies which cause plankton to ricochet off the lobes and back into the mouth cavity.

Essentially, the modified rakers form a filter that repels particles instead of trapping them. Not only does this mean that the system is very resistant to clogging and can operate at high flow rates, but it also allows the animals to retain prey that’s much smaller than the gaps in the rakers.

“We are currently looking at whether we can adapt this mechanism for engineered systems,” says assistant professor Jim Strother, co-author of a paper on the study. “For example, one future direction is exploring whether this can be applied to wastewater treatment in order to address the emerging threat from microplastics pollution.”

Original source: https://newatlas.com/manta-ray-water-filtration/56550/

Original Date: Sept 27 2018

Written by: Ben Coxworth

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Common Signs You Home Needs a Water Softener

There are a number of signs that point to a problem with hard water.  Homeowners with hard drinking water will often notice a smell or taste that is off.  When hard water is present in your home often times the sinks, tubs, and toilets will be stained, family members may begin to complain of dry, itchy skin, and your water supply will smell and taste off.  Bringing in a sample of the homes water will allow you to know exactly what is going on in your water supply. This water analysis will tell you what type of water treatment system will best suit your homes water issue. 

Water softeners are used to remove excess calcium and magnesium ions and exchange them with either sodium or potassium ions, depending on if you choose a salt free water softener or water softener that uses salt.  When the exchange has taken place the water softener regenerates and flushes the system of extra ions until it has been completely recharged with new sodium or potassium ions. This process uses twenty-five gallons of water each day, depending on use.  It is important to determine the waters hardness.  Preventing the buildup of scale can increase the lifespan of your appliances like your water heaters, dishwasher, and more.  There are seven common signs that your home will benefit from the installation of a whole house water softener. 

Noticeable Scale Buildup on Appliances

If you are noticing scale, you more likely than not have hard water.  Noticeable scale build up will be seen in the form of mineral deposits on coffee pots, tea kettles, and such.  These same mineral deposits are being built up within your homes pipes as well.  To prevent clogged pipes and less effective passing of water through your system causing defective plumbing and increased scale buildup a water softener should be installed.  The water softener needs to be set in a manner that allows the proper amount of water to rejuvenate each day to avoid running out of soft water throughout the day.  If you use twenty-five gallons of water each day, then your water softener needs to supply twenty-five gallons of soft water. 

The visible buildup that homeowners are seeing is known as limescale.  This is a hard, chalky material that is formed from a combination of calcium and magnesium bicarbonate.  The salt is what forms the white chalk like substance that is visible.  A water softener will reduce this scale buildup through ion exchange technology.

Itchy, Dry Skin and Hair

Hard water contains more calcium and magnesium salt than soft water.  When hard water is used in daily life it can cause your skin and hair to dry out no matter what shampoo and lotion you are using.  The hard water is not providing any nourishment to your skin and hair, so it dries out.  The extra minerals, calcium and magnesium, remain on your skin. It is important to note that soap doesn’t dissolve well in hard water, so it doesn’t help to remove the build up of minerals.  Since soap doesn’t dissolve well either that residue is also known to irritate the area as well. 

Hard water is also harsh on even the most stringent of skin care regimens.  Hard water blocks the pores in your skin, causes inflammation, and creates an environment prone to black heads.   Leathery, dry skin is another common side effect of hard water.

Gray and Faded Clothes

When darker clothes, sheets, and towels start to fade and gray when washed using hard water. The hard water may also change the texture of the fabrics.  The fabrics will start to become scratchy overtime because of the additional minerals that are contained in hard water. 

Sinks, Bathtubs, and Toilet Stains

Often times when a home has hard water it is noticeable because of the stains that the mineral residue leaves behind in sinks, tubs, and toilets.   The stains are formed after water evaporates and leaves behind the large amounts of calcium and magnesium from the tap water.  The residue will feel plaster like.  These deposits can also form on faucets.

One way in which to remove the residue build up is with vinegar.  Put vinegar into a spray bottle and spray the buildup or residue with vinegar.  After letting it set for a minute it should wipe away without a ton of struggle.  For harder to remove residue let the vinegar soak for up to an hour.  To clean the residue buildup from your dishwasher, pour a cup of bleach into the dishwasher along with a cup of powdered detergent.  Run this mixture through an empty dishwasher.  After the cycle has finished up run the dishwasher once again with an empty load using a cup of vinegar.  This will help to ensure that the bleach is no longer present.

Both types of water softeners, salt and potassium chloride, are effective in softening your homes water to prevent future residue buildup from making a home in your home.  To determine your homes water softener needs, have the water in your home tested.  This water analysis will help to determine the level of extra minerals in the water and the settings that will be optimal once your water softener is installed.

Constant Plumbing Repairs

The plumbing in your home, especially steel pipes, are easily harmed from the buildup of limescale which will prevent the water from flowing freely through them.  PVC and Copper piping tend prevent the buildup of hard water minerals better than steel however, all plumbing will eventually be affected by limescale.  More limescale means thicker buildup in the plumbing and will eventually lead to the loss of water pressure.  The rate at which the pipes are affected will be quicker overtime as the space within the pipe circumference shrinks due to the additional limescale.

If left untreated the pipes will eventually fail.  Homeowners that don’t take regular care to clean up the build up from around faucets will eventually end up with valves that don’t fully shut and therefore leak.  This leak will lead to greater, faster limescale buildup.  Plumbing repairs can be expensive as well as causing a lot of excessive wear on the house.  Installing an appropriate water softening unit will work wonders in helping to prevent further plumbing issues.

Increases in Water Bills

The amount of water that you use will increase the harder pipes have to work to get the water to flow through.  If there is a sudden increase in your water bill have your water tested.  This analysis will determine if you need a water softener installed, need your water softener replaced, or the water hardness level of a currently installed system needs to be adjusted. 

If you notice a change in your water the first step should always be to have your water analyzed by a professional.  Once an analysis is done on your water and you know what minerals are contained in the water a water treatment solution can be recommended.  Sometimes the simple installation of a water softener can improve the overall quality of your homes water however sometimes the solution is more complex.  A wide range of water treatment systems are available from whole house to point of use water softeners, water filters and purifiers, and reverse osmosis systems, all with their own specific job.  

The experts at Reynolds Water Conditioning have a solution to your homes unique water quality needs including: arsenic, bacteria, chlorine, rotten egg smell, fluoride, hard water, iron, lead, acid, tannins, radon, and more.  More information on our water treatment solutions including water softeners and conditioners, water filtration and purification, reverse osmosis drinking water, and iron & odor removal can be found online at https://reynoldswater.com.

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Dr. Roach: Forget Bottled Water, Tap Water is Better

Bottled and purified water sales have increased over the years. I often see advertisements showing filters attached to faucets that “take out all impurities.” My parents had a water softener, and my father, professionally involved in weight-bearing physical activity, experienced demineralization of his skeleton and a broken hip. It has been suggested that the water softener took minerals, including calcium, out of the water that my parents used to cook and drink. I drink tap water, but is a large percentage of the U.S. population headed for demineralization and malnutrition because they drink only “purified” water?

Most water softeners work by exchanging sodium for the “hard” minerals, especially magnesium and calcium, present in most tap water, to greater or lesser extent.

If the water in your area is naturally very hard, then a significant amount of sodium may be added, and calcium and magnesium removed. However, this is very rarely a problem, and almost certainly had nothing to do with why your father had a hip fracture.

We get our minerals mostly from food, not from water. The major risk factors for osteoporosis in men are smoking, alcohol, low testosterone levels and low vitamin D, although there are many other causes.

I don’t recommend bottled water or water purifiers because in most of the United States and Canada, the water quality is excellent. Bottled water is 1,000 times more expensive than tap water where I live. I have been to places where the tap water doesn’t taste so good, in which case I would recommend a filter over bottled water.

Original Source: http://www.agrinews-pubs.com/lifestyle/dr-roach-forget-bottled-water-tap-water-is-better/article_96cfbffa-8f89-537e-9779-7974253bcdf8.html

Original Date: Dec 17 2018

Written By: Keith Roach
Keith Roach
Keith Roach

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Is All Well With Your Drinking Water?

woman drinking water

MONDAY, Dec. 3, 2018 (HealthDay News) — More than 15 million homes in the United States get their water from private wells, according to federal estimates.

While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulates public drinking water, people with private wells need to check their water themselves, along with other maintenance steps.

This is especially important if you’re thinking about having a baby. Many studies over the past 15 years have found a greater risk of birth defects in babies whose mothers drank well water with concentrations of certain contaminants.

You can’t rely on how your water looks coming out of the faucet to evaluate its safety. That’s because dangerous contaminants don’t always affect color or smell. One example is nitrate, a chemical found in many fertilizers that can leech into the water table. It’s long been linked to birth defects like limb deformities and cleft palates.

A 2016 study done at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health and published in the journal Current Environmental Health Reports linked two other common substances to birth defects: atrazine and arsenic. Atrazine is an herbicide that can get into soil and groundwater. Arsenic most often leeches into water naturally, from bedrock, but that doesn’t make it less dangerous.

Various types of birth defects have been seen when two or more of these contaminants are present at the same time.

If a private well is your primary source of drinking water, ask your local health department how to find a water testing facility near you, or call the EPA Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791.

Original source: https://consumer.healthday.com/vitamins-and-nutrition-information-27/water-consumption-health-news-701/is-all-well-with-your-drinking-water-738886.html

Written By: Len Canter

Published Date: Dec 3 2018

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New Alloy to Solve Lead Problem in Drinking Water

New alloy to solve lead problem in drinking water
UNSW scientists have created a lead-free brass alloy for use in plumbing that makes drinking water safer. Credit: Shutterstock

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.

New alloy to solve lead problem in drinking water
The bright brass alloy is silver which distinguishes it from traditional brass used in plumbing. Credit: Kevin Laws

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

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Properties of Soft Water – What are the Benefits?

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

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