Home Water Filtration Systems

Home water filtration systems are available in a wide variety, ranging from highly complicated systems to the simpler ones that require very less maintenance. They are chosen according to the quality of the water that is available in your area. Many Americans rely on tap water for drinking purposes. However, if anybody feels that there is a need for water filtration, then certified water filtration systems are easily available in the market. These water filters are available in a wide variety and use different techniques for purification of water. Some home water filter systems purify the water to remove the contaminants and bacteria from the water. Many other systems, on the other hand, provide better-tasting, purified water. Various types of water filtration systems are as follows:

Distillation
Distillation of water has its origination in the nature's hydrological cycle. The distillation of water is considered as the most effective way of purifying water. The distillation process removes a large range of contaminants. The organic, inorganic and biological contaminants are removed by the distillation process. The distillation process implies boiling water and the part of water that condenses is considered as purified distilled water.

The disadvantages of distilled water is that the distilled water is more acidic. Distilled water is said to lack minerals and thus, taste. The distillation process requires bulky systems which acquire large amount of space on the kitchen countertops.

Ion Exchange
Ion exchange treatment of water filtration softens the water. The traces of calcium and magnesium are found in the water that must be removed. Some soluble iron contents are also found in water. For removing these contents from the water, the ion exchange process is generally used. The water softening process involves the use of resin beads. The resin beads are made polystyrene, which has a great affinity to the hard elements in water like calcium and magnesium.

Initially, the regeneration of the resin beads is done using sodium. The sodium ions clung to the resin beads during regeneration. Hard water is added to this tank that contains regenerated resin beads. The calcium and magnesium ions from hard water cling to the polystyrene resins. There is an ion exchange of sodium from the resin to the calcium and magnesium from the hard water. For regeneration, solution of NaCl is poured in the resin bead tank.

The water softening procedure only softens water and does not treat the bacteria present in the water. This is a major disadvantage of ion-exchange water filtration system. The process of de-ionization is similar to the ionization process. De-ionization process uses the same resin beads as in ionization to replace the hydrogen and hydroxide ions for negative and positive ions in the water.

Carbon Adsorption
The chlorine-content in drinking water is a serious issue that can be tackled using the carbon adsorption filtering technique. The carbon adsorption process is done using pyrolyzing coconut, coal and resin beads. The carbon adsorption process depends on the diameter of the pores of the carbon filter. The rate of adsorption is a function of the molecular weight and molecular size of the organic chemicals.

The carbon adsorption process of water filtration removes the chlorine content and also some organic traces to some extent. The disadvantage of this technique is that the purified water may contain fine carbon particles.

UV Filtration
The UV (ultra violet) filtration is a widely used filtration system for germicidal treatment of water. Low pressure lamps are used for UV irradiation.

These are the processes used in water filtration systems. Instead of using only one of the above techniques, these techniques are combined together in the same water purifier so as to get better results.