Water Filtration is a rapidly growing trend.
Before you purchase a Water Filter, it’s helpful to know what sort of water you’re working with and all of the water filtration methods available to you.
For example, do you have city water with chlorine and fluoride?
If so, you’d be looking for something slightly different to someone else who is on rainwater.
Therefore, when looking for the best filtration method, it’s important to consider what it is you might want to do with the water. Some filtration methods are better at removing particles and contaminants than others.
Here’s a quick overview of each type of water filtration method.
1. Reverse Osmosis
Reverse Osmosis works by pushing water through a semi-permeable membrane pulling out ions and other unwanted contaminants, including fluoride.
Reverse Osmosis removes more contaminants than any other filtration method.
The downside with RO is that up to 50% of the water is wasted, and Reverse Osmosis produces acidic water. This is why most RO machines also raise the pH up to neutral again before dispensing the water.
Click here to learn all you need to know in the Buyers Guide to Reverse Osmosis.
2. Distillation
The distillation process vaporizes water by heating it to exceptionally high temperatures before condensing it back into liquid form for drinking.
Distillation removes minerals, microorganisms, and chemicals but not chlorine and many other volatile organic chemicals.
3. Deionization
Deionization filters purify the water by removing salt and other charged particles.
Living organisms like viruses or bacteria are not removed in this process.
4. Ion Exchange
Ion exchange water filters are effective at reducing the hardness of water with beads of a polymer resin. They perform well as water softeners or hard water filters.
When hard water flows past the resin, the calcium and magnesium ions bind to the resin, displacing the sodium into the water making it much softer and nicer to drink.
5. Granulated Activated Carbon
GAC filters are used to remove chemicals that give off bad odors or tastes like chlorine, herbicides and pesticides. When the water flows through the granulated carbon, the chemicals stick to the carbon producing better water.
A granulated carbon filter consists of small granulated pieces of carbon and acts as a "polishing filter' in the filtration process.
While a GAC carbon filter is simply grains of carbon, a carbon block filter is where the carbon is grind to a powder and compressed together to form a block filter.
6. Mechanical
Mechanical filters are good at removing sediment and cysts.
Mechanical filtration is what gets rid of the dirt. If your water supply contains a lot of dirt, sand or dust, then a sediment filter is the first step.
Mechanical filtration is a process of separating solids from liquids using porous media or a screen that permits the liquid to pass through, but traps solid materials.
8. Carbon Block
Carbon block filters are made up of powdered carbon which remove contaminants through a process called adsorption, where impurities stick to the carbon block as the water passes through the cartridge.
Some carbon filters only remove chlorine and odours while improving the taste. Others are also effective at removing more harmful contaminants such as nitrates, arsenic and mercury.
A carbon cartridge will remove contaminants in relation to the micron size of the carbon powder inside.
Ground coffee = 100 microns
Strand of hair = 70 microns
Dustmite = 20 microns
Bacteria = 1 micron
Carbon block filters are both more effective, and more expensive than regular activated granular carbon and are capable of removing more contaminants.
The rate at which water flows through these filters has a direct impact on the quality of water produced at the end. The slower the filtration process, the better the water.
Continue reading: What is a charcoal filter?
9. Aragon
The Aragon combines numerous treatment methods: mechanical; ion exchange, adsorption; electric adsorption.
The Aragon filter is a bacteriostatic polymer made from additives of silver and granules of ion-exchange resins. Hardness salts, dissolved metals as well as their compounds are removed through these ion exchange properties
SGS-polymers are radically new material combining three types of filtration: mechanical, sorption, and ion-change filtration. No other known sorption materials remove such a diverse range of chemical contaminants as SGS-polymers do.
Discover more on the manufacturer's website.
3 Steps To Choosing The Best Filtration Method For Your Home
Reverse osmosis is the most comprehensive filtration method, and an amazing way to get clean, safe drinking water at home. However, in many cases a simple twin or triple Benchtop Water Filter does the job.
Consider these things when choosing a water filter:
1. Understand What’s Wrong With Your Water
You need to know what you want to remove from your water.
2. Decide The Level Of Exposure You’re Willing To Accept
Choose a water filter that removes the contaminants that you no longer want.
3. Choose A Type
There are three main Benchtop Water Filter types to choose from and largely depend on the size of your family and the water demand:
Benchtop Gravity systems are compact, portable and incredibly easy to use and set up.
Benchtop systems are the most common choice for many Australian families because they offer diverse cartridge options. They are simple to install and create excellent quality water at an affordable price.
Reverse Osmosis systems remove the most amount of contaminants out of these 3 Benchtop options but at a considerable cost to you, the consumer, and the environment. It filters the slowest and will give you water with the least amount of contaminants.
Need more information?
Click for more help choosing the best method for your specific needs, or feel free to contact us.
We're here to help you find the best system for your home or office so that your drinking water is always clean and refreshing.
We'll guide you through each option available on the market, no matter how complicated it might seem at first!