About water purifiers, Live Well APP user @QiDaSheng has written an article analyzing in detail the common types on the market.
Do you need a water purifier? Which type of water purifier is more suitable for your home?
I'm sure you'll have your answer after reading this article!
The following content comes from the APP user @QiDaSheng
With the rising standard of living of the general public, it is only natural that the pursuit of health is also getting higher and higher! The first big thing is the household water.
The picture of our unlimited inner longing is like this:
However, the reality is like this:
A variety of water purification equipment such as the general rise of the spring, in the face of a wide range of water purification products on the market, I believe that most of the people and the beginning of the I was the same dumbfounded.
Combined with the majority of sales consultants on duty, for the principle of water purification system and function is not very understanding, the sales pitch at any time, exaggerated function has become a commonplace, in a nutshell, is the product of their own on the second world second ground in the middle of the second air, a machine can solve all the water problems.
In order to guard your wallet, this issue to popularize the knowledge of water purification.
- 01. Filtration -
The common water filtration methods on the market are microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and RO (99% coverage), corresponding to the following substances that may be contained in the tap water, the filtration capacity of the following table:
If we think of the different impurities as a different size of the fish, different filtration methods is the size of the hole of the fishing nets, according to the aperture size to Expression of the following chart:
- 02. water purification equipment -
① pre-filter (pre-purifier, water protector said it)
Filtration accuracy: 1μm-100μm
Installed in the home of the water mains at the forefront of the home (so-called front) into the household filtration equipment, filtering the large particles visible to the eye of the impurities, especially in the pipeline, sediment, algae and so on. of sediment, algae, etc.
Pre-filter is divided into two kinds, one is backwashing, the other is a cartridge. Personally recommended backwashing, do not need to replace the cartridge (essentially a stainless steel metal filter). When dirty, the valve to backwash, rinse for a while on the clean, the service life of more than 15 years, and the cost is also very low, the replacement of the cartridge is relatively troublesome, and the follow-up investment is high.
Advantages: can protect the subsequent water purification equipment and waterway. No need to specialize in after-sales service, no need to replace the cartridge (for the front of the backwash), filtration effect is intuitive and transparent, long service life (up to several decades).
Disadvantages: not high precision, only coarse filtration.
Purchase advice: the common precision on the market is about 40μm, the higher the precision, the better the filtration effect, but accordingly the more prone to clogging the attenuation of water pressure is also the greater. About the front, I personally feel that buy domestic 500 yuan or so can, more than a thousand dollars to buy the front I can only say that there is money.
② ultra-filtration machine (market name is more confusing, such as what water purifiers, drinking machines, etc.)
Filtration accuracy: 0.01μm-0.1μm
Ultra-filtration machine that is the use of ultra-filtration technology to purify water treatment equipment. The difference with other water purification equipment is that it uses ultrafiltration membrane in the equipment.
The market is generally sold to the family are installed in the above picture of this multi-stage ultrafiltration under the kitchen, in addition to ultrafiltration membrane, but also increase the filtration of residual chlorine, organics, color and odor to improve the taste of the PP cotton (sold on the market filtration precision is generally in the 10-20 μm, the main microfiltration, filtration of suspended solids can not be removed from the bacteria), activated carbon cartridge (activated carbon on the two roles: to remove residual chlorine and improve taste) and so on. (activated carbon filter (activated carbon has two functions: to remove residual chlorine and improve the taste), etc. Ultrafilter can effectively remove sediment, rust, bacteria and macromolecules in the water and other harmful substances.
Insert a Q&A: Here may be asked, since the ultra-filtration machine can remove sediment, I still install the front of what? Ultrafilter can remove sediment yes, but his accuracy is higher than the front, that is, more likely to be clogged by sediment, greatly reducing the life of the cartridge, so this hard work is still done by the front, after all, do not need consumables.
Advantages: can completely remove bacteria and algae and other organic matter, metal ions in the lower part of the direct drinking (which is why the business is basically playing the name of the direct drinking machine in the sale), but still recommended to boil drinking, the reason for the next article. No electricity, ultrafiltration membrane needs more than 0.1Mpa pressure to filter, general household water pressure can basically meet.
Disadvantages: Although the ultrafiltration machine retains the minerals and trace elements beneficial to the human body, but it also means that heavy metal ions and calcium and magnesium ions can not be filtered out, so there should be limescale or limescale, heavy metal exceeds the standard, there is still nothing to be done. Regular replacement of the filter element, different filter element replacement cycle is different, need to pay attention to.
Purchase advice: ultrafiltration membrane belongs to the chemical fiber class, especially delicate, very easy to get out of the problem. Ultrafiltration membrane water purifier is a fatal flaw is only a membrane filament fracture, bacteria and other harmful substances will flow through the fracture, equivalent to the whole ultrafiltration membrane scrapped. The relevant domestic test report shows that the domestic ultrafiltration membrane water purifier almost can not drink directly. So it is better to buy imported big brands, domestic assembly are not assured ....
3 reverse osmosis water purifier (RO machine)
Filtration accuracy: 0.1nm-1nm
RO machine is an internationally popular reverse osmosis filtration method of pressurized raw water, the use of physical principles of filtration processing, and then do not add any compounds, the production of pure water for direct human consumption of water machines (also known as the end of the water purification equipment).
Only the water treated with RO membrane is truly potable! (Because only water molecules can penetrate the RO membrane, after filtration is pure water molecules H2O)
Generally speaking, the RO machine has a five-stage cartridge, as follows (example)
See, the RO machine and ultra-filtration machine in the cartridge is almost the difference between an ultra-filtration membrane and a RO membrane, as said above, PP cotton is in addition to the suspended solids, activated carbon is to remove the residual chlorine and improve the taste! As mentioned above, PP cotton is to remove suspended solids, activated carbon is to remove residual chlorine and improve the taste, the key consumables are also the most expensive consumables is RO membrane or ultrafiltration membrane. The famous RO membrane is no more than Dow, GM, Shi Han, Toray, but it is said that the market of the big brands of RO membrane at least two thirds are fake. Most of them are from Shenzhen.
While the domestic RO membrane, although it does use the same reverse osmosis technology with the U.S. aerospace industry. But the quality of their membrane, roll membrane process, the number of membrane layers, etc., are shoddy, all for the cost savings. The result is that many water purifiers on the market, with less than three or two months, there will be limescale, TDS also spiked dramatically. Some RO membranes are either clogged or breakdown.
There are big domestic companies claiming to use the U.S. Dow membrane. This is not a false statement. They do purchase the U.S. Dow membrane sheet, and then processed into their own cartridge. The number of layers, roll film process, and so on, naturally, with the original Dow is not even close to a thousand miles. But they won't tell consumers that they rolled their own membrane, just vaguely say it's a Dow membrane.
You asked me how to buy a reliable RO membrane? I don't know ah, ask for help, who called the market so confusing .....
To give a knowledge point: a lot of businesses on the market to use the TDS pen to test the water, so as to conclude that the water filtered water TDS value is low so that the water produced by the water dispenser is healthier conclusions, here is completely misleading!
First of all, what is TDS? TDS stands for Total Dissolved Solids, the main function is to tell you that the water of calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium of these conductive ions in the content of high and low. National standard GB5749-2006 "drinking water health standards", for the requirements of TDS is less than 1000mg / L is qualified. As the RO machine processed water molecules, conductive ions are almost gone, so the TDS value is naturally very low, but does not mean that the TDS is low is good water, TDS high water is unhealthy, such as the European royal family dedicated to the French chateldon water, TDS as high as 1,882mg/L, because the water is rich in a variety of beneficial minerals and trace elements.
But we don't have to worry about mineral deficiencies due to drinking pure water for a long time; after all, drinking water is only a small part of the way we get minerals.
Advantages: all water purification equipment, the only direct drinking standards, more direct than ultrafiltration
Disadvantages:
① need to be pressurized with electricity, and therefore to be reserved for the potential
② RO opportunity to produce wastewater, before the industry standard of pure wastewater ratio of 1:3, the pure wastewater ratio now on the market to reach the 1:1 more and more has been caused by a certain amount of waste of water. Waste of water resources, not very environmentally friendly, not suitable for large-scale use of water (so those who feel that since the RO machine is so cattle, then I'll use RO membrane water purification pro house can save, in addition to the cost of water there is a more important reason to see the next article)
③ water speed is too slow! Therefore, in order to solve this problem on the market appeared two genres: one is the water storage, like my picture above, with a water storage bucket, so that the water speed problem solved, but brought two problems, the first is to take up more space, not friendly to the small house, the second is the problem of secondary pollution; the second is to increase the flow of water through the RO membrane pressure, but at the expense of the life of the RO membrane way! In exchange for the flow, the late cost of consumables will increase; as for which type is better, the Internet has been arguing about it, here do not want to tear, everyone by themselves, Baidu, choose as needed.
④Nano-filtration machine
Filtration accuracy: 0.01μm-0.001μm
Through the cartridge, the water purifier can prepare water is called the nanofiltration water machine, nanofiltration can remove micro-pollution. Nanofiltration is between ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis, nanofiltration cartridge pore size of 0.01-0.001 microns between the ability to filter out antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, petroleum, detergents, heavy metals, algal toxins, and other chemical pollutants; and smaller than this pore size of the mineral ions can pass. The market share is small, not to elaborate too much.
- 03. Extra -
① water softener
Only responsible for one thing, is to reduce the hardness of the water, that is, to reduce the calcium and magnesium ions in the water, the other impurities that exist or exist. Water hardness, the most intuitive is easy to boil water scale, water heaters, plumbing, dishwashers, these are not good; bathing, mirrors, faucets dry will leave water stains, towels, clothes, wash the number of times after the hard, etc., long-term drink too hard water, the body is not good. (It is said that the British prince's top is also due to the water quality is too hard to lead to, the extreme fear
The working principle of the water softener is the ion exchange technology, with sodium ions to replace calcium and magnesium ions in the water (so you have to regularly increase the water softener salt, in fact, is the middle of the salt), out of the water with a high concentration of sodium ions (the harder the water, the higher the content of sodium ions), which is also the reason why some people say that the soft water can not be drank (I feel that even if the high content of sodium ions is not enough, it is not enough), but it is also a good idea to drink water. I think that even if the sodium ion content is high, but not to the point that people can perceive, a day to drink soft water intake of sodium ions in total is not as good as a mouthful of salted vegetables, right).
As for the centralized water softener is just a little more processing capacity, there is no difference in essence.
The water softener market is really profitable ah, unlike RO machines and ultra-filtration machines, consumables, and there is no high-tech technical barriers (to put it bluntly is the salt, ten dollars a packet), the core technology is only the algorithms and stability of the control module, but the sale price is also too high, so now a lot of Taobao can be DIY, like to toss you can try.
2 central water purifier
The main difference is that the processing capacity is larger, can be divided into with ultrafiltration membrane and without ultrafiltration membrane:
a. Central water purifier without ultrafiltration membrane can effectively remove chlorine in the water, rust, heavy metals, viruses, algae, and solid suspended solids, so that the processed water is clear and clean. It is mainly used to treat household water. Generally installed next to the water inlet pipe. Mainly used in families, schools, hotels, hotels and so on.
b. Central water purifier with ultrafiltration membrane can remove bacteria, but also to achieve the above effect, generally used for domestic water consumption is relatively large, the main purpose is to bring directly to drink.
3 water jugs, water buckets, etc.
Where the filtration pressure is not large, the filtration accuracy must be very poor. For example, water purification kettle, water purification bucket, desktop all-in-one machine, filter heating intelligent all-in-one machine, etc., claiming to be able to drink directly, there is no high-precision filtration material and enough pressure, all bullshit!
- 04. water purification system -
Water purification system is frankly based on the needs of your home to choose a different water purification equipment to create a set of water treatment system only, borrowed from a national brand of publicity map:
Figure out the above precision of a variety of water purification equipment, the principle and purpose, and then to speak of the water purification system on the much simpler. We divided the water roughly into three ways:
① drinking water: the need for the most thorough filtration
② kitchen water: general filtration, do not need to consider the issue of hard and soft water (depending on the person)
③ shower and laundry water: the need for soft water
The above is only an illustration of the specific layout depends on the needs of each individual, for example, my family's water map (see below) and the above Figure is slightly different, interested friends can study.
There is a lot of content, we slowly digest.