Zero Water vs Distilled Water

Ron AKA wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 09, 2018 9:08 am

I'm quite sure Brita is a just a carbon filter, and is not intended to remove minerals, just taste and odour which are usually organics.

You'd be quite wrong about that. Brita removes minerals too, at least according to the folks over on the Keurig forums.

prodigyplace wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 09, 2018 10:11 am

There is no way in current physics that a pour over filter could filter as well as distillation or reverse osmosis.

Actually I would have to disagree with that. If the ZeroWater unit uses a mixed anion and cation resin bed to purify the water with the ion exchange process it should produce excellent quality water that is better than distillation and reverse osmosis. I wouldn't buy or recommend a ZeroWater unit because of the cost, but it SHOULD produce good water. No significant pressure is required for ion exchange. The issue with distillation is that some solids carry over with the steam and are still there in the condensed water. Reverse osmosis varies quite a bit in quality depending on the membranes used and the number of stages. Home under the kitchen sink models are not that great, but certainly better than tap water.

The best water purification systems use reverse osmosis first, and then do the final dissolved solid removal with mixed bed ion exchange. It is sometimes called ultrapure water and is used in semiconductor manufacture.

If you know somebody that works at a power plant with steam turbines they could be a source of cheap high purity water. Most companies let employees take it home for free. On an industrial scale it costs about 2-3 dollars per 1000 gallons.

Ron AKA wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 09, 2018 9:42 am

. . .

We do the same, but often we find that the bottled water that resorts provide is reverse osmosis water with very low solids. It works well. The secret to using tap water is to rinse out the reservoir every day with fresh water. That keeps solids and scum from building up.

Apparently Zerowater claim one filter which costs about $33 here will produce about 25 gallons of water, depending on water hardness. That works out to over $1 a gallon, not considering the cost to buy the machine.

That's $1 per U.S. gallon, vs. 88¢ per U.S. gallon to buy from Walmart (and a lot less "bother"). Note for U.K. people; a U.S. gallon is about 20% less than your gallon, I think because you tried to shortchange us.

Ron AKA wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:12 am

. wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 09, 2018 10:11 am

There is no way in current physics that a pour over filter could filter as well as distillation or reverse osmosis.

Actually I would have to disagree with that. If the ZeroWater unit uses a mixed anion and cation resin bed to purify the water with the ion exchange process it should produce excellent quality water that is better than distillation and reverse osmosis.

What's life like in that fantasy land you live in???