Distilled water

[Tracy D'arth]

17 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

 Our diddy one had a clear plastic tell tale at the top (where the tap water came in) filled with little balls. When the balls changed colour we just fitted a new cartridge.

Those are softeners, nothing like de-ionisers. So are the salt regen ones. Totally different output.

[Tony Brooks]

11 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Those are softeners, nothing like de-ionisers. So are the salt regen ones. Totally different output.

 

No, definitely a deioniser sold for that purpose by a reputable company to battery shops.

[Tracy D'arth]

5 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

No, definitely a deioniser sold for that purpose by a reputable company to battery shops.

I am very skeptical, convince me with the chemistry involved please.  

 

These the balls?  https://www.amazon.com/FILTER-TECH-Sodium-Polyphosphate-SILIPHOS/dp/B07CVDMQCT

 

Siliphos are softener balls.

[Tony Brooks]

1 minute ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I am very skeptical, convince me with the chemistry involved please.  

 

These the balls?  https://www.amazon.com/FILTER-TECH-Sodium-Polyphosphate-SILIPHOS/dp/B07CVDMQCT

 

Siliphos are softener balls.

 

As we are talking about 50 years ago, I have no way of finding out. The balls were nothing like the ones you linked to, and those dissolve over time. The ones I am at talking about were like cycle ball bearings in size and did no dissolve. I think they may have been resin in the delivery stream and the colour change was caused by the ions that were no longer being absorbed in the cartridge.

[Tracy D'arth]

  😕

Not something I have ever heard of, but then it may have been before my time!

Unlikely!

 

Interesting though, a chemical reaction at low temperature to remove bonded ions from water molecules. Like cold fusion?

[Tracy D'arth]

34 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

  😕

Not something I have ever heard of, but then it may have been before my time!

Unlikely!

 

Interesting though, a chemical reaction at low temperature to remove bonded ions from water molecules. Like cold fusion?

Found these in China,

1kg DIY refill Water Filter Cartridge Mineral Tourmaline Alkaline balls Purifier Aqurium 

 

But they only make the water alkaline.

 

[Tony Brooks]

10 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Found these in China,

1kg DIY refill Water Filter Cartridge Mineral Tourmaline Alkaline balls Purifier Aqurium 

 

But they only make the water alkaline.

 

 

Wot, a bit like ours in the Thames and Kennet valleys already is.

[Alan de Enfield]

12 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Wot, a bit like ours in the Thames and Kennet valleys already is.

 

 

Is that because of the boaters emptying their porta-pottys in the canal / river ?

[jonesthenuke]

Reading the posts above, whilst it's reasonable to be sceptical about removing ions from water at low temperature with resin balls (it sounds so simple) it is actually how demineralised water is made.

 

There are two basic sorts of the resin, cation and anion. One removes the cations (think metals like sodium and calcium and exchanges the ions for hydrogen ions (H). The anion resin exchanges anions for Hydroxyl ions (OH), the resultant mix of H and OH ions combines to give pure water H2O in place of the original contaminants

 

In industrial scale plants the process is usually done in three stages with vessels of Cation resin, then Anion resin followed by a "mixed bed" to polish the water to get the best purity.

 

Domestic scale applications are the filter cartridges for boiling water taps (which would scale up and fail quickly - ours did when I omitted to keep up with the maintenance) and larger carriages used to treat the water used to clean windows with long pole mounted brushes (to prevent smears on the glass when the water dries). The are mini mixed beds, often with an added carbon filter to remove organics.

 

For more details look up "ion exchange water demineralisation plant" or similar. Note there are other processes like reverse osmosis (often used for pre treatment of the feed water, but this does not give pure water as a result.

[Tony Brooks]

12 minutes ago, jonesthenuke said:

Reading the posts above, whilst it's reasonable to be sceptical about removing ions from water at low temperature with resin balls (it sounds so simple) it is actually how demineralised water is made.

 

There are two basic sorts of the resin, cation and anion. One removes the cations (think metals like sodium and calcium and exchanges the ions for hydrogen ions (H). The anion resin exchanges anions for Hydroxyl ions (OH), the resultant mix of H and OH ions combines to give pure water H2O in place of the original contaminants

 

In industrial scale plants the process is usually done in three stages with vessels of Cation resin, then Anion resin followed by a "mixed bed" to polish the water to get the best purity.

 

Domestic scale applications are the filter cartridges for boiling water taps (which would scale up and fail quickly - ours did when I omitted to keep up with the maintenance) and larger carriages used to treat the water used to clean windows with long pole mounted brushes (to prevent smears on the glass when the water dries). The are mini mixed beds, often with an added carbon filter to remove organics.

 

For more details look up "ion exchange water demineralisation plant" or similar. Note there are other processes like reverse osmosis (often used for pre treatment of the feed water, but this does not give pure water as a result.

 

Thanks for that, I was beginning to think I was dreaming. There may well have been three chambers in the cartridge and I seem to recall two different coloured balls so that might be explained by your post. The cartridges were sold on an exchange basis so I had no idea what was inside them.

[jonesthenuke]

33 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Thanks for that, I was beginning to think I was dreaming. There may well have been three chambers in the cartridge and I seem to recall two different coloured balls so that might be explained by your post. The cartridges were sold on an exchange basis so I had no idea what was inside them.

I should have added that the resins are regenerated by treating with strong acid for the cation and strong alkali for the anion. At work we used sulphuric acid and sodium hydroxide and had large tanks of each. Quite nasty stuff to deal with as you can imagine.

 

Edited January 1, 2023 by jonesthenuke
typos

[IanD]

1 hour ago, jonesthenuke said:

I should have added that the resins are regenerated by treating with strong acid for the cation and strong alkali for the anion. At work we used sulphuric acid and sodium hydroxide and had large tanks of each. Quite nasty stuff to deal with as you can imagine.

 

 

I can particularly advise against using a mouth pipette with concentrated sodium hydroxide. DAMHIK... 😞

[David Mack]

4 hours ago, jonesthenuke said:

Reading the posts above, whilst it's reasonable to be sceptical about removing ions from water at low temperature with resin balls (it sounds so simple) it is actually how demineralised water is made.

 

There are two basic sorts of the resin, cation and anion. One removes the cations (think metals like sodium and calcium and exchanges the ions for hydrogen ions (H). The anion resin exchanges anions for Hydroxyl ions (OH), the resultant mix of H and OH ions combines to give pure water H2O in place of the original contaminants

 

In industrial scale plants the process is usually done in three stages with vessels of Cation resin, then Anion resin followed by a "mixed bed" to polish the water to get the best purity.

 

Domestic scale applications are the filter cartridges for boiling water taps (which would scale up and fail quickly - ours did when I omitted to keep up with the maintenance) and larger carriages used to treat the water used to clean windows with long pole mounted brushes (to prevent smears on the glass when the water dries). The are mini mixed beds, often with an added carbon filter to remove organics.

 

For more details look up "ion exchange water demineralisation plant" or similar. Note there are other processes like reverse osmosis (often used for pre treatment of the feed water, but this does not give pure water as a result.

I can remember buying a kit to produce battery topup water, from Halfords or another car accessory place about 40 years ago. It consisted of a clear plastic bottle with a screw on lid and a fine mesh in the neck, containing a lot of small (perhaps 0.5mm diameter) beads. The beads were coloured a sort of translucent orange and purple. The ideas was you half filled the bottle with tap water. Gave it a good shake to let the beads do their stuff, then you could use the water to top up batteries or in a steam iron. I think you were supposed to throw the whole thing away after a set number of uses. I assume the beads were ion exchange resins.

[ditchcrawler]

9 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Those are softeners, nothing like de-ionisers. So are the salt regen ones. Totally different output.

Mine were softeners regenerated with salt. The ones at birds Eye were sent back for regeneration