How They Compare: Home Water Purifiers
Home water purifiers are devices of several sorts that filter out a variety of contaminants found in your tap water supply. You should compare home water purifiers before buying one, as they all work differently and use different types of filtration to purify water. In addition, the different types of filtration all filter out different contaminants, with some being better at eliminating bacteria, others at getting rid of solid particles.
Start to compare home water purifiers by examining their function. Which ones work by filtering water in a special tank or pitcher, and which ones work by filtering the water directly from your tap? You'll even find a few purifiers that work on the main line of your home, but these are generally used more for water softening and are uncommon otherwise. When choosing your home water purifier, think about what you need pure water for. Is it just to fill your bottled water containers, or do you need to be able to cook and make coffee with your purified water? Is your local water from a reasonably clean aquifer, or is it purified from the sludge of the East River? Answers to these questions will help you determine what you want filtered out of your water.
Compare home water purifiers by their action on your water first. You'll quickly see that each type of filter uses a different action. The activated carbon filter is the usual choice for regular home use, but the reverse osmosis is also popular for a more involved water purification system. In addition, some areas use the KDF-55 or the greensand iron filter. Another water purification method, the ultraviolet filter, is rarely found for household use. In general, you'll find that the activated carbon and reverse osmosis filters are the most common home use filters by far. These two filters have very different actions on your water supply.
Activated carbon home water purifiers use carbon's extreme reactivity to other chemicals as a means for removing contaminants. Items dissolved in your water have a slight negative charge, and activated carbon has a slight positive charge. Because of this quality, activated carbon home water purifiers can easily remove impurities until the carbon has become saturated with the impurities. There are two basic types of activated carbon purifiers: the granular activated carbon (GAC) type or the powdered block carbon. Both are excellent, but the powdered block removes more. Activated carbon is known to remove chlorine, bad tastes and odors, radon, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like pesticides, sediments, and some heavy metals and hydrogen sulfide.
While reverse osmosis purifiers are more involved to install, they also make much better purifiers, delivering water of bottled water grade. The osmotic barrier inside these purifiers is an ultrathin membrane that allows the passage of water, but not of contaminants, so that you wind up with pure water on one side and significantly more impure water on the other. Most reverse osmosis home purifiers consist of the purification system (with an activated carbon filter in addition to the osmotic filter) and a reservoir that delivers purified water directly to your tap. In addition to the contaminants removed by activated carbon, reverse osmosis purifiers remove bacteria, viruses, arsenic, chlorine, fluoride, nitrates, iron, and all heavy metals.
Your choice in home water purifiers should be based on cost of installation, how you'll be using your filter, and what the purifier removes. The purest water comes from the reverse osmosis filter, but both do an excellent job of delivering clean, pure-tasting water to your faucet.
Article Source: http://www.search-raven.com
About the Author
Trent Barrett is a consultant who writes for Best-Home-water-Purifiers.com. You can visit their homepage to learn more about Home water Purifiers.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License, which means you may freely reprint it, in its entirety, provided you include the author's resource box along with LIVE links (without "nofollow" tags).
by: TrentBarrett
Total views: 35
Word Count: 584
Rating: Not yet rated