Is Your Filtered Water Cloudy?Friday, November 21, 2014 - by Water2DrinkIt’s that time of year again, when the snow is blowing, the
wind is howling, and your water is… cloudy? Probably the single most asked question we get in the wintertime
from our customers is, “Why is my filtered water cloudy?” Water can be cloudy for two reasons, one that
is benign and one that can be very bad.
The benign answer is:
it’s just air. If you are using a
high quality point-of-use water filter, such as a Multipure Drinking Water
System, you may be surprised to see cloudy or milky-looking water coming from your
filter. This most often occurs when the
water is cold (coming from cold ground water or being transported underground
through cold pipes). One of the
properties of water is its ability to dissolve gasses, including #air. Cold water is denser than warm water, and
therefore it is capable of holding more dissolved gasses. The cloudiness or milkiness is simply
dissolved air. You can test this by
filtering a glass of water and letting it set on the counter for a moment or
two. The cloudiness (air) will dissipate upwards from the bottom of the glass,
leaving a glass of clear filtered water.
Why is this not considered turbidity? Turbidity is the measure of relative clarity
of a liquid, or of how much material may be suspended in water and how that
material decreases the passage of light through the water. Turbidity refers to how clear water is, and
indicates the presence of total suspended solids. When solids are present in water, this
indicates the water is not clear of particulate matter, and these solids may
also be contaminants of great health concern. An article on Waterontheweb.org states, “turbidity
adds real costs to the treatment of surface water supplies used for drinking
water since the #turbidity must be virtually eliminated for effective
disinfection (usually by chlorine in a variety of forms) to occur. Particulates may also provide attachment
sites for heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury and lead, and many toxic
organic contaminants such as PCBs, PAHs and many pesticides.”
Of course, you must use a quality water filtration system such
as a #Multipure filter to remove particulates and contaminants. But just how does this filtration work? For contaminants having a physical size, the solid
carbon block filter provides mechanical filtration on a submicron level to
remove particulates and bad tastes. It
also employs electrokinetic adsorption to attract and control charged particles. Almost any carbon filter can reduce chlorine
and address taste and odor problems. The
Multipure solid carbon block technology goes well beyond aesthetic improvements
to remove the broadest array of #contaminants, including turbidity. Each product in the Multipure family is
provided with a Performance Data Sheet that details NSF’s product certification
data and contaminant reduction test results.
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