lightning and friction, but friction cause lightning....
Deionized (DI) Water
- Thread starter The Critic
- Start date
Well.....................there is WATER in the subject!! 
No kidding. How did I miss that?
Where does the hydrogen come from? I’m really lost here.
hmmmm.....no sorry cant get behind that one. water is not really created in nature, it merely transformed.
we likely have the same amount of water on the planet since its creation.
the water you drank earlier today is the same water peed out by dinosaurs.
That looks awesome! How long does it last ?Here's a filter that fits the standard filter housing and removes hardness from the water. Good for a dedicated hose bib.
https://www.amazon.com/MaxWaterFlow-com-Magnesium-Hardness-Reduction-Softening/dp/B0789VTMWN
Lifelong chemist, and in a previous job "babysitting" our house DI system was one of my duties.
Basically it had been installed several years prior, and Culligan maintained it. It supplied labs on 4 floors of a large building, and by my calculations had about 2 miles of piping through the building. The resin beds, pump, etc were by one of my lab workspace, and I'd often have to chase down air bubbles on the top floor of the building.
Ours fed regulated pressure tap water in, which was then circulated through two cation/anion exchange mixed bed resins and a charcoal filter. Each of these was about the of a 300cf gas cylinder. We also had a particulate filter and a UVC germ unit. When Culligan came(we had to call them, but it was every 4-6 weeks) they would replace the particulate filter, the charcoal tank, rotate one of the mixed beds to a different position, and then exchange the other mixed bed.
Our system had a guaranteed resistivity of 1MΩ/cm. In the middle of all of the above was a little neon light that would light when the resistivity was this or better, and would go out when it fell below 1MΩ/cm. I'd check it every day, and call when it went out. They'd usually come in 2-3 days. There were a few times I was out on vacation and the person supposed to check didn't, and it would go for a week or two-sometimes that would require that the service change both the mixed beds.
My graduate work was in surface chemistry, which required high purity water. We had a Barnstead Nanopure system in our lab, which took the house DI water and used additional exchange resins along with charcoal filtering to lower down to what was stated as 18MΩ/cm. There was also a .5 micron final filter on the dispenser. I'll mention that I was in charge of maintaining that system when I was in graduate school, and with every cartridge change I'd let dilute bleach(no cartridges installed) circulate through the system for an hour or so-that was something that the trained service guys would do when they'd come in, and I figured there was no point in paying them for something I could do myself
. People would often get upset because immediately after service, the system wouldn't actually reach 18MΩ, but usually more in the high 16MΩ range(it had a display on the front telling you this). What one service guy told me was that it was a very rare system that could actually get that low(which IIRC is the theoretical conductivity of pure water due to auto-ionization at 25ºC), but that bacteria would build up on the conductivity flow cell and give a false reading. The bleaching procedure would cause the system to give a "true" reading for a while, and poeple were generally more content to have the false 18MΩ reading (never mind that when I'd use an external conductivity probe before and after service, the "16MΩ" water would actually read better than what had previously been indicated as 18MΩ).Water softener ion exchange replaces calcium and magnesium ions with sodium ions from the salt - not the salt itself. If softened water leaves deposits it's because it's not properly softened.
Check your water hardness and the hardness setting on your softener. I know the factory setting on our softener was a fraction of what was required for our water. Increasing the setting made a huge difference in our water quality and eliminated hardness problems.
https://www.newater.com/what-is-deionized-water-and-soft-water/
Have you considered a properly configured (for your water hardness) water softener system? That will remove minerals (mainly calcium and magnesium) at a lower cost than deionization.
https://www.newater.com/what-is-deionized-water-and-soft-water/
Yeah that’s a common misconception that since water softeners use salt they put salt in the water. Sodium ions yes, but not sodium chloride.
I let that one pass since we had this exact same discussion before.
Hmmm, no not really. The salt is a cleaner that cleans the media in the softener. You might want to have your hardness tested again and recalibrate your machine. Misconception. The residue left behind in the water, is evidence that your machine is being overused per regeneration cycle, you might be using the wrong salt, or your media is "dead".
Salt does not enter the system in the way you are thinking.
Lightning and the preceding static charge splits it from existing water or any other polar compound containing hydrogen.
Ok, I ordered one of these since there's a 20% off sale today:
https://windowcleaner.com/products/xero-di-tank?variant=43287792386199
Spoke with the folks on the phone -- they're very knowledgeable, even by my unrealistic standards. I should get 1000 gals out of the 1 cu-ft DI tank. Worse case scenario, which is a year of car washing for me; I am estimating 5 cars per month and 15 gals/car.
The resin refill is $173 shipped when on sale; I will gladly pay $173/yr (or under $3/car) to wash without spotting.
The Xero tank doesn't have a bypass valve, but I can just add some quick connects to the hose adapters to swap hoses.
https://windowcleaner.com/products/xero-di-tank?variant=43287792386199
Spoke with the folks on the phone -- they're very knowledgeable, even by my unrealistic standards. I should get 1000 gals out of the 1 cu-ft DI tank. Worse case scenario, which is a year of car washing for me; I am estimating 5 cars per month and 15 gals/car.
The resin refill is $173 shipped when on sale; I will gladly pay $173/yr (or under $3/car) to wash without spotting.
The Xero tank doesn't have a bypass valve, but I can just add some quick connects to the hose adapters to swap hoses.
Critic,
Not sure if you have already decided or have had a chance to look at these but Costco online has the following:
https://www.costco.com/unger-profes...otless-car-wash-system.product.100471577.html
or
https://www.costco.com/unger-profes...car-wash-system-bundle.product.100670295.html
replacement resin:
https://www.costco.com/unger-profes...ter-replacement-2-pack.product.100480183.html
Not sure if you have already decided or have had a chance to look at these but Costco online has the following:
https://www.costco.com/unger-profes...otless-car-wash-system.product.100471577.html
or
https://www.costco.com/unger-profes...car-wash-system-bundle.product.100670295.html
replacement resin:
https://www.costco.com/unger-profes...ter-replacement-2-pack.product.100480183.html
I saw these, but based on the limited information provided, the cost per use did not pencil out. Thanks.
It works as advertised — I am able to wash cars in direct sunlight with no issues. Even chemicals work better. Very happy with the purchase, wish I had bought this 10 years ago.
I ordered an inline flow meter ($20) from Amazon and will install to track usage.
on your experience and the 20% off sale, I went ahead to get one too! complete with amazon "prime day" in line meter.
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My literal job is ultrapure water in the semiconductor industry, but I learned something today...I had no idea DI resin filters were something available off the shelf or economical for normal people to buy. Now that I know, I need one...
For car wash purposes and most other household "pure" water purposes, like mixing engine coolant, or clothing irons etc. all that matters is the level of TDS is very low. However you make the water that way doesn't really matter, all that matters is how low the TDS is (like <5PPM TDS is good) and any of the methods can do it, and any of the methods can fail to do it if they are not maintained or overloaded etc.
DI normally means ion exchange resin is used. This is used in industry because it's cheapest at large scale.
RO normally means membrane filtration. This is used for smaller systems because it's energy intensive but cheaper at small scale.
Distilled usually means steam distillation. This is an expensive way to get pure water unless you are doing something else at the same time.
...but providers have been known to interchange these terms, and consumer law has upheld them doing this, reasoning that they are functionally equivalent. It's like the whole "synthetic oil" marketing thing all over again. So you might buy "distilled water" at walmart, but there's no guarantee that it wasn't actually purified by RO.
The cheapest source of low TDS water is normally the water you get out of the vending machines outside grocery stores around here. I believe it's RO and UV filtration inside, but I don't really care because it measures <<5ppm on my TDS meter. If they don't maintain these machines, the TDS will spike up, but in my experience they are pretty reliable. Going and paying $3 for a 5gallon bucket of RO water is my normal way to get pure water for car-rinsing and other household purposes; I prefer to let the water machine people pay for and maintain the filters! But still having my own filter is something I would definitely think about I just wonder how long it will last and what you do when it stops working (normally they are refurbished).
For car wash purposes and most other household "pure" water purposes, like mixing engine coolant, or clothing irons etc. all that matters is the level of TDS is very low. However you make the water that way doesn't really matter, all that matters is how low the TDS is (like <5PPM TDS is good) and any of the methods can do it, and any of the methods can fail to do it if they are not maintained or overloaded etc.
DI normally means ion exchange resin is used. This is used in industry because it's cheapest at large scale.
RO normally means membrane filtration. This is used for smaller systems because it's energy intensive but cheaper at small scale.
Distilled usually means steam distillation. This is an expensive way to get pure water unless you are doing something else at the same time.
...but providers have been known to interchange these terms, and consumer law has upheld them doing this, reasoning that they are functionally equivalent. It's like the whole "synthetic oil" marketing thing all over again. So you might buy "distilled water" at walmart, but there's no guarantee that it wasn't actually purified by RO.
The cheapest source of low TDS water is normally the water you get out of the vending machines outside grocery stores around here. I believe it's RO and UV filtration inside, but I don't really care because it measures <<5ppm on my TDS meter. If they don't maintain these machines, the TDS will spike up, but in my experience they are pretty reliable. Going and paying $3 for a 5gallon bucket of RO water is my normal way to get pure water for car-rinsing and other household purposes; I prefer to let the water machine people pay for and maintain the filters! But still having my own filter is something I would definitely think about I just wonder how long it will last and what you do when it stops working (normally they are refurbished).
@The Critic Just ordered some virgin resin to have on standby. I've already used around 150 gallons on this tank!
Im lucky in that regard. Front of house is dead north and I have an 80 foot white oak in my front yard so I can wash my cars anytime before noon and be completely in the shade.
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