Comments on: A journey through a water cleaning plant in Brazil

By: Water Industry Professional

Water Industry Professional — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:22:16 +0000

Ski, the assertion that RO permeate is too clean to drink is flat-out wrong. Starting with raw water with a total dissolved solids level of 300 mg/L, and if the RO membranes reject 99% of the ions in the water, you will have a solids level in the permeate/product stream of 9 mg/L. If you’ve ever had Aquafina bottled water, you have consumed water of this salt level (or lower), and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this water. Just trying to keep this fact-based…

By: Water Industry Professional

Water Industry Professional — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:16:01 +0000

That is an urban myth that RO permeate is too clean to drink…there are quite a few bottled water brands on the shelf with less than 10 mg/L TDS…troubling to see someone within the industry perpetuating that statement.

By: Katie Fehrenbacher

Katie Fehrenbacher — Sat, 19 May 2012 16:58:19 +0000

We might do more on water tech in the future, but this is all on this GE plant.

By: Ski Sullivan

Ski Sullivan — Sat, 19 May 2012 16:30:26 +0000

Katie this was a good look into GE’s efforts but didn’t give me enough info to actually see how this is affecting their industrial processes or resources in the region. I know you’re limited in word count but are you going to finish this report in subsequent posts? Obviously a touchpoint in this report was the “too pure to drink” realization. However, with no substantiation or fleshing out of this revelation it just creates more questions and very little satisfaction for the reader. Is there more to this report (series)?

By: timjwebster

timjwebster — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:09:59 +0000

Perhaps they could use it to clean the river Tieté whose aroma would have welcomed you to the city :-)

By: Mark k

Mark k — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:59:07 +0000

How does this differ from the Grundfos Biobooster system bring sold thruout Europe ?

By: Katie Fehrenbacher

Katie Fehrenbacher — Sat, 19 May 2012 02:53:55 +0000

Yes it can.

By: Roland

Roland — Sat, 19 May 2012 01:04:11 +0000

There is a type of de-ionized water that is used especially in microchip processing that is too pure to drink. It will cause your digestive tract to give up essential ions. I learned that while reading about chip processing in Arizona. Weird but true.

By: Capitalist Desi

Capitalist Desi — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:37:29 +0000

Unless you drink too much water, of course.

By: Capitalist Desi

Capitalist Desi — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:35:43 +0000

Can water be “too pure to drink”? I doubt.
Distilled water is the purest water and it is definitely so pure that it can make you sick.