Wednesday, June 3, 2009

How In The World Do Water Filters Work?

By Peter Abertoning

There are lots of people worried about our water. And in particular about whether it's healthy to drink it. If this worried you then you may be interested to find out some more about water filters and water filtration in general.

How do water filters work? Here are some of the things that you should know about the water purification process if you have thought about getting a filter for your home.

The first thing that you will want to take into consideration is why a water filtration system may be necessary. Keep in mind that there are many different toxins and chemicals that can affect our drinking water.

There are many many different contaminants. Some can make your water taste bad, like chlorine, and can even cause your skin to dry out from showering. And there are many nasty chemicals found in water in small quantities that are known to cause cancer.

There's different methods of water filtration that can be used. The first of these is the physical removal of solids, or physical filtration. This is really just a fine filtering or straining of water using a membrane that doesn't allow particles of a certain size or bigger to pass through.

And then there is chemical filtration that removes various contaminants by chemical methods.

One of the most effective filters is an activated carbon filter. These are extremely popular filters and most effective and are found in many houses throughout our country.

AC or activated carbon filters are effective but how do they work? They work by the use of some form of carbon, normally charcoal, absorbing the impurities in the water.

And there are other water filtration systems too. You can get ion exchange filters and reverse osmosis filters and even water distillers. And all of these can be effective at removing different types of contaminants.

So the type of filter for your home is the one that removes the impurities that will be in your water.

AC filters are very good and are by far the most popular water filters found in homes in our country. But they do have some drawbacks. For example they do not filter out flouride, sodium and nitrates. But they do filter chlorine, a major contaminant.

It is now possible to buy 2 stage water filters to overcome this problem with AC filters. Whilst an AC filter is very good on it's own a 2 stage filter will have a second stage of filtration that removes those contaminants that do not get removed by the carbon. These are now by far the best water filters that you can get.

The science behind water filters can be confusing. But the bottom line is that no water filter will remove every single contaminant. The one that comes closest if the activated carbon 2 stage water filter and it's this that you want if you need the best water filter. And you do need the best water filter as there is no doubt that our water is seriously contaminated.

So make sure you're drinking clean healthy water. Find and use an AC 2 stage water filter.

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