With the growing concern about living a greener, healthier life, there are several popular styles of water filtration and purification systems currently available. In fact, the market has become so overwhelmed with products that you really need to compare water treatment systems. Only sometimes it can be difficult to know which option best suits you and your family's needs. Every type of water treatment device has its pros and cons.
The first process we will look at is Reverse osmosis. It was developed as a water treatment method over 40 years ago and was originally designed for desalinating seawater. During the reverse osmosis water filtration process the water is pressurized and then forced through a semi-permeable membrane.
When you compare water treatment systems, reverse osmosis is effective when mineral-free water is the desired end product. However, most minerals contained in water are physically larger than water molecules. Thus, they are trapped by the semi-permeable membrane and removed from drinking water during the reverse osmosis process. Such minerals include salt, lead, manganese, iron, and calcium. The good things is reverse osmosis will remove chemical components of drinking water, including the harmful additive fluoride. But it does also take away some of the good minerals that we need in water.
The next water filtration process we shall explore is called distillation. The distillation process utilizes a heat source to vaporize water. The object of distillation is to separate pure water molecules from contaminants with a higher boiling point than water.
When you compare the distillation process to reverse osmosis, you'll find it provides mineral-free water that's used in science laboratories or for printing purposes. The positive side for home water filtration is that it removes heavy metal materials like lead, arsenic, and mercury from water and hardening agents like calcium and phosphorous. Also, distillation provides mineral-free water that can be quite dangerous to the body's system when ingested because of its acidity. Such drinking water can zap your bones and teeth of beneficial minerals.
Most recently the water filtration market has seen devices that use a combination of methods to provide clean water. It's pretty eye opening when you compare most water treatment systems to Activated Carbon (AC) filters. Carbon Block and Granular Carbon Filters are the most common varieties of countertop and under-the-sink devices. Granular carbon filters and carbon block systems rely on highly intricate methods of toxic contaminant removal. Water treatment systems with activated carbon mechanisms can give you more of an advantage over a standard filtration device.
Another interesting aspect you will find when comparing filers is what Activated Carbon systems can do. AC filters are recognized by the EPA as the best available technology for filtering something called VOCs and THMs, which are some to the most hazardous culprits that you will find in drinking water.
Multi-media block filters employ the benefits of activated carbon with several added advantages. What happens is a blended media is compressed into a solid form to filter out sediment and cysts. Moreover, this setup also prevents water from channeling around the filter mechanism.
In the end, when you compare water treatment systems, you need to get what works best to filter out a wide range of elements. In most cases, the best performing systems include a multi-level process to filter out scores of contaminants.
