Water Treatments

Water has a crucial role to play for the well-being and sustenance of not only for the humans, but for the animals and live plants as well. The total body water (TBW) content averages 60 per cent of body weight in men and almost 55 per cent in women, while vegetables come with up to 80 to 90 per cent water.

Lakes and rivers are the source of surface water; whereas wells are the source of ground water. Water coming from these sources doesn’t normally maintain quality standards for human consumption such as drinking, bathing, dishwashers, washing machines, boilers and water heaters, pets, and sometimes even for plants.

Smell, acidity, heavy metals, color, dissolved solids (TDS), pollutants, and microbes and bacteria make water unhealthy for use. Thus, the water has to be utilized to get the required quality, free from contaminants, for human consumption.

Treatment of water relies on the pollutants existing in it. Following are the methods that can ensure availability of water of desired quality. The common or judicious methods for treating water is possible through water treatment chemicals, water softeners, distillation, ultraviolet (UV) filters, acti-vated carbon filters, and reverse osmosis.

Water softeners discard the magnesium and calcium salts by swapping them with sodium salt. The water, thus, acquired is not tough. Water treatment chemicals, such as soda ash is capable of neutralizing the acidity of the liquid. Distillation is capable of vaporizing the water that is thereafter condensed to provide pure water.

However, the aforementioned method doesn’t help in getting rid of volatile organic impurities that co-distill with water. Activated carbon filters are compatible with the principle of surface adsorption; they remove organic impurities. Ultraviolet filters prove helpful in killing the bacteria by radiation. Reverse osmosis is also capable of removing almost 90 per cent of all the existing impurities making use of a semi-permeable membrane.

Hence, it is essential to suitably test the water to opt for proper measures for its treatment to conform to the norms of the quality.