Are water purifiers safe?

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Author Bejon Mishra during the release of his book 'Study On The Safety Issues Concering Storage Water Purifiers' in
Hyderabad on Monday. Photo: G. Krishnaswamy
TOPICS
environmental issues
water

Branded purifiers harmful as they use overdose of chemicals: study

Are water purifiers more harmful than polluted water? Yes, says noted consumer activist Bejon
Misra. And he has come out with a publication providing evidence that even the branded water
purifiers are harmful as they use overdose of chemicals for purification that get deposited in the
bodies after consuming.
Mr. Misra, who released his book Safety issues concerning storage water purifiers at Crossword
Book Store, said that the companies do not adhere to international standards with regard to usage of
chemicals and they mislead the consumers making tall claims.
Unfortunately, the consumer is in no position to verify the claims.
They are buying branded purifiers based on faith but actually are consuming overdose of chemicals
like Chlorine, bromide and nano-silver, he said, adding that consumption of these chemicals lead to
dangerous diseases.
Mr. Misra said it was time the government prescribes standards for water purifiers as it did in case of
packaged drinking water. Companies don't provide relevant information on the residues of chemicals
the purification process leaves behind in their product.
We are not against the usage of purifiers but against the overdose of chemicals used for
purification. The book, he said, talks about some crucial issues like how the government has failed
to address these problems and how companies were exploiting the customers.
However, Mr. Misra said that products that use reverse osmosis process and ultra-violet rays for
purification of water were safe.
Arjun L. Khandare from the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), who received the first book agreed
to the points raised by Mr. Misra.
Keywords: water purifiers, chemical treatment, potable water

Water Purifiers How safe is the water you drink?

The Latin expression Aqua pura is Aqua vitae perhaps best expresses the value of pure water.
Translated into English, it literally means pure water is the water of life.
Water is life's mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water, but water in its raw
state is not suitable for drinking. It contains numerous contaminants, which can be dangerous to human
health.

But, thanks goes to Science that has invented devices to shield civilization against such aqua ailments. A
water purifier is one of such devices that purify our drinking water. A water purifier is a wonderful device
that converts raw water so that it tastes like nectar; therefore by this process it makes ordinary tap water
perfectly suitable for drinking.
Health Benefits of a Water Purifier:
A water purifier is very beneficial for healthy living. Ordinary untreated water can contain numerous
contaminants including bacteria, algae, viruses, fungi, minerals, and man-made chemical pollutants that
cannot be seen with the naked eye. These contaminants are very pernicious for ones health.
A water purifier kills these organisms and filtrates the contaminants to make the water perfectly fit for
drinking. Thus water purifiers save us from numerous dangerous bacterial and viral diseases that easily
spread when water becomes contaminated.
Water Purification Techniques:
Different water purifiers use different techniques of purification. The common techniques used to purify
water include boiling, carbon filtering, distilling, reverse osmosis, ion exchange, electrode ionization, water
conditioning and plumbo-solvency reduction.
Carbon filtering: This technique is commonly used in home water filters. Charcoal, a form of carbon with a
high surface area due to its mode of preparation, adsorbs many compounds, including some toxic
compounds. The water is passed through activated charcoal to remove such contaminants. Granular
charcoal filtering and sub-micron solid block carbon filtering are the two types of carbon filtering systems.
Granular charcoal is not very effective for removing contaminants such as mercury, volatile organic
chemicals, asbestos, pesticides, disinfections byproduct (trihalomethanes), mtbe, pcbs etc. The submicron solid block carbon filter is the better system that removes all of the contaminants.
Home water filters drinking water sometimes also contains silver. These small amounts of silver ions can
have a bactericidal effect.
Reverse osmosis: The reverse osmosis water system is the technique in which mechanical pressure is
applied to an impure solution to force pure water through a semi-permeable membrane. The process is
called reverse osmosis, and is theoretically the most thorough method of large-scale water purification.
Ion exchange: Most common ion exchange systems use a zeolite resin bed and simply replace unwanted
Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions with benign (soap friendly) Na+ or K+ ions. This is the common water softener. A
more rigorous type of ion exchange swaps H+ ions for unwanted cations and hydroxide (OH-) ions for
unwanted anions. The result is H+ + OH- H2O. This system is recharged with hydrochloric acid and
sodium hydroxide, respectively. The result is essentially deionized water.
Electrodeionization: It includes passing the water through a positive electrode and a negative electrode.
Ion selective membranes allow the positive ions to separate from the water toward the negative electrode
and the negative ions toward the positive electrode. It results in high purity de-ionized water. The water is
usually passed through a reverse osmosis unit first to remove nonionic organic contaminants.

Water conditioning: This is a method of reducing the effects of hard water. Hardness salts are deposited
in water systems subject to heating because the decomposition of bicarbonate ions creates carbonate
ions that crystallize out of the saturated solution of calcium or magnesium carbonate. Water with high
concentrations of hardness salts can be treated with soda ash (Sodium carbonate) that precipitates out
the excess salts, through the common ion effect, as calcium carbonate of very high purity. The
precipitated calcium carbonate is traditionally sold to the manufacturers of toothpaste.
Plumbo-solvency reduction: In areas with naturally acidic waters of low conductivity (i.e. surface rainfall in
upland mountains of igneous rocks), the water is capable of dissolving lead from any lead pipes that it is
carried in. The addition of small quantities of phosphate ion and increasing the pH slightly both assist in
greatly reducing plumbo-solvency by creating insoluble lead salts on the inner surfaces of the pipes.