At Dime Water, Inc., prior to making a recommendation or providing a quote, we carefully look at your total water chemistry in order to recommend the best contaminant removal unit that works for you. Whether your water has elevated amounts of nitrates, sulfates, fluoride, arsenic, or uranium, our compact and easy-to-use contaminant reduction/removal systems guarantee treated water 24/7, providing you and your family with peace of mind when it comes to pure drinking water.
By using a variety of backwashing filter media and replaceable cartridge filters for our units, the typical range of contaminant removal is from 80 to 99%.
All systems include meters to establish the proper point of regeneration and where critical alternating twin systems are employed to guarantee treated water 24/7. Properly designed and maintained, nitrate and sulfate reduction will exceed 95%. The content of sodium/potassium and chloride in the treated water will rise proportional to the level of the hardness + nitrate + sulfate.
ARSENIC REMOVAL SYSTEMS
Arsenic is detrimental to health at levels above 10 parts per billion (ppb) according to most regulatory agencies causing skin, circulatory and intestinal problems. There are many approaches to arsenic removal from water and schools of thought that at times get quite heated as their individual proponent’s jockey for regulatory approvals and testimonials from persons of influence.
We have settled on a non-dumping (no arsenic released once attached) resin that uses the affinity of arsenic to ferric iron as its primary methodology. This process is effective on arsenic 5 over the entire potable water pH range of 6.5 to 8.5. If arsenic 3 is present, pre-treatment with pH adjustment (soda ash or potassium carbonate) and/or oxidation (chlorine or hydrogen peroxide) may be called for depending on the level of arsenic 3.
The media is used in a standard backwashing filter or it can be placed into a cartridge filter. Units can be residential or commercial water conditioning in size. Though there is little interference in operation due to other analytes in the water, we carefully look at total chemistry prior to making a recommendation or providing a quote. The capacity of the resin is in the range of 500,000 gallons per cubic ft. and at that time residential size systems are re-bedded and commercial systems may be partially regenerated with high pH brine to restore some additional capacity. The typical range of removal is from 99% as new and 80% at the end of the service life.
FLUORIDE REDUCING SYSTEMS
The presence of fluoride, especially fluoride added by municipalities is a very “hot” topic with those in favor diametrically opposed to those who are opposed. The ADA and the EPA both are in favor within prescribed limits and many MD’s and consumer groups want the addition stopped.
If removal is desired an excellent approach is to use a material called Hydroxyl Apatite which is a processed bone char. As fluoride in the body finds its way to bones, so it is attracted to the bone char. We worked in concert with a customer and an industry-recognized laboratory to establish capacity and proper system design.
As with the arsenic systems, the media can be placed in a cartridge or in a backwashing residential or commercial water treatment size systems. Upon exhaustion, the media is discarded. Typical results are 85 to 90% removal.
Various regulatory agencies deem nitrates in excess of 45 mg/l as NO3 (10 mg/l as N) to be harmful especially to infants, the elderly, and immune system compromised people. It is also harmful to some fowl and livestock. Sulfates in excess of 250 mg/l may have detrimental health effects. Since the late 70’s, special ion exchange resins have been available to remove nitrates and sulfates from water. These are anion resins typically provided in the chloride form. Their important feature is that they do not release accumulated nitrates or sulfates which are referred to as “dumping”. As a result, even if there is a failure the water out of the systems never has a con-tent of either nitrates or sulfates higher than the incoming water.