[Q] How effective do you think RO/DI filters would be in rem

[Veng68]

Hi,

Kind of off topic but with the events on the past week, i was wondering how effective ro/di systems would be at removing poisons? I know that they can handle viruses & bacteria quite well and they do take out some herbicides & pesticides. What I'm worried about is if some nut case decides to drop some cynide or other poison into a local water supply. How effective do you think these filters would be at purifying such water? I've been searching the net but without much luck. Thanks.

Cheers,
Victor Eng

 

[Redemptioner]

I don't know if your worried about your fish or yourself (it won't matter if your fish get ill from the water if your dead).

Ro units remove unwanter materials by straining out particles that are bigger or smaller than a water molecule. There are several molecules that are close, such as phosphate, which need to be removed via chemical based filtration (ie. the di resin). Basically this resin removes most (sadly not all

) of the elements other than water (hydrogen and Oxygen).

The reason you don't just use a DI resin is due to how quickly a cartridge will be used when it has to take out all of the unwanted chemicals.
So the answer to your question is YES, it will take out about 98% of the possible poison that will work when dissolved in water.

 

[Veng68]

Actually I'm worried both for my fish, inverts & my family (never hurts to be on the safe side).

I just found a pdf file from the DOW site that states sodium cynide is 95% rejected with there Filmtec RO membrane.

Cheers,
Victor Eng

 

[Veng68]

That 5% cyanide still worries me..... do you think DI would take out a signifcant amount?

Cheers,
Victor

 

[ajx22]

Anyone who is interested (and EVERYONE should be due to what is actually IN our drinking water) needs to check out:

Nikken

Water Products

 

[Mouse]

AJ,

I have heard of some aquarists who have RO/DI units big enough to supply their entire house. I think with most people this is more of a way of using excess water but the unit wont have to be that big. And im sure that the economics of scale will mean that once you have installed a unit, to have that extra gallonage wont really effect the overall price/time anyhow. Just think you will never have to clean fuzz out of your kettle/iron ever again.