Water Softening A Pivotal Part of Water Purification

Potable beverage may be a major challenge in our country nowadays as all the beverage sources like rivers, ponds, and lakes are subject to pollution. Industrial waste and human excretion are dumped into them for several years, causing the standard of the water to be degraded. Plus, at many places, groundwater is employed as beverage, and there's a high possibility that it might contain a better percentage of minerals like calcium and magnesium. A quite preferred ratio of those minerals changes the character of the water too hard. Water softening is that the process of removal of those minerals from water to form it perfect for drinking also as other purposes; the devices used for the method is named softener.

About water softening

There are two majorly used scientific methods for softening water, one is thru the natural process method, and therefore the other is reverse osmosis. Other less used methods are through Chelating agents, Lime softening, Distillation method, and sodium carbonate method. Allow us to discuss them briefly.

Ion exchange method

This is the way most of the house appliances won’t to soften water. During this method, the calcium and magnesium ions are exchanged with sodium or potassium ions. This removed the hardness causing agents from water and add unharmful sodium and potassium in it. The devices use a resin-like substance that originally has all the sodium or potassium, but at the top is merely left with calcium and magnesium. One must replace the resin from time to time as a recharge.

Reverse osmosis

This method is now each day mostly utilized in industrial level RO Service also as home-based water purification systems. During this method, water is pushed hard through a semi-permeable membrane. Since this action is completed by immense pressure, it thus separates water molecules from hardness ions. The pore is large enough to permit water molecules to undergo but stops the calcium and magnesium ions. This membrane is that the key to the present process, and it must change from time to time.

Chelating agents

These agents are mostly present in soaps. Shampoos in order that the effect of water are often reduced while someone is using these products with water. For instance, acid in soaps, physic acids, and EDTA components are very commonly utilized in all the private care products.

Distillation

The simplest way of softening water is by boiling it then capturing the evaporated water so on condense them and retrieve the water within the purest form with no hardness. But this method isn't used widely because it consumes tons of fuel and isn't energy efficient.

Washing Powder or soda method

In this method, we used home used sodium carbonate, which has sodium and carbonate molecules. When treated with water, it changes the calcium and magnesium chloride and sulfate ions to their carbonates, which are evaporated, while setting the sodium ions with Chlorine and sulfides to make common salt and sodium sulphate.

Lime softening

We simply add the lime solution into the water, and an identical to natural process reaction happens here also but with none resins. It’s a commercially viable thanks to soften water.

Importance of water purification and evolving methods

From all of the above, we've now understood how important the softening of water is and the way we roll in the hay. But that's just a neighborhood of the entire water purification process. Because that's a multi-layered process where we remove chemical and biological contaminants and pathogens, solids that remain suspended, harmful gases. All of those should be removed to get pure beverage. This process is administered not only in-home based water purifiers but also at an industrial level altogether the main sectors like pharmaceuticals, industrial appliances, drinking water plants, food processing, etc.

Conclusion

The methods have revolutionized also, and nowadays, we use active carbons, flocculation chlorination, electromagnetic waves like UV rays in situ of legacy methods sedimentation, distillation, and filtrations. The standard of pure beverage goes high by high per annum, and makers are arising with more advanced, economically viable, cost-effective water purifiers. But still, quite a billion people worldwide don't have access to pure beverage.