Amateur Lab Equipment: Reverse Osmosis Deionization Systems for Purifying Water

In this video we discuss the components, usage, and science behind a Reverse Osmosis Deionization unit for purifying water.
Most sources of water that an amateur chemist may use (like tap water) contain dissolved salts. These salts usually consist of sodium, calcium, or magnesium carbonates, chlorides and sulfates. Water containing significant quantities of these minerals is often called "hard water". And they can be easily observed by letting a quantity of water evaporate completely. While these minerals are usually very low in concentration and inconsequential for most domestic purposes like drinking, cooking or bathing, they are a contaminant for performing chemistry. This can be particularly detrimental to sensitive experiments like analytical chemistry, crystal growing, or electrochemistry. So removal is preferred.
The historical technique for removing non-volatile mineral contaminants is distillation. For very small quantities distillation is cheap and effective as most amateur chemists already have distillation equipment. But for larger quantities, distillation is very energy intensive and expensive due to electricity costs. It's also extremely slow.
Reverse Osmosis Deionization is now the standard for making purified water as such systems are much easier to purchase in the modern era. A basic system has a carbon prefilter that takes in water and neutralize the chlorine normally added to sterilize. This is done to ensure the chlorine cannot damage the reverse osmosis membrane. The water then proceeds to the membrane that consists of a rolled envelope of polyimide plastic. This membrane passes water, but resists the passage of minerals and salts. The wastewater that contains the leftover minerals is discarded, while the permeate water with most of the minerals removed is sent to a column of deionization resin. This resin is made of a special ionically charged plastic that swaps out mineral ions in the water for hydronium or hydroxide ions. Those ions neutralize to become water and the result is purified water with all the minerals removed. While not strictly necessary, purified water improves the quality and reproducibility of amateur chemistry experiments so a reverse osmosis system is a recommended addition to an established amateur lab.
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[@joseslijansen]

As a ship engineer this type of system is widely used on most cargo ship to create potable water from sea water. When you change filters in this kind of system please make sure they are straight and do not use the wrench to tighten the filters. These kind of filters are mostly pressure locking and only need to hand tight. When using a wrench to close it you will break the plastic over extended periods of time. I hope this helps and sorry for the bad grammer

[@NurdRage]

Interesting! i'll keep that in mind :)

[@nate_d376]

I was looking for this comment. There are a few videos out there on creating your own system, without having to purchase an expensive system, for use on smaller boats.

[@ChinaTwinCat]

@@nate_d376 u can find exactly this type of filter on ebay for around 50$ add maybe 60-70$ for the storage watertank and you should have a good set. search in the aquaristic section, thats where i found it :)

[@mariorodriguez653]

I think the gaskets are the first ones to go. I had a filter that was like a stone looking one in the sink and I used to me it super tight. One time when I open the valve it’s sprayed water everywhere. The gasket somehow got ripped. Couldn’t find a replacement and that was the end of it.

[@nikushim6665]

Most long range boats have these system, thought in a lot of cases its retrofitted or just a portable unit. The membrane exchange cylinder is usually much larger then what you would find for tap water to handle the desalination. On small single cabin cruisers its not really needed because of the limited range, but on something like a long distance sailboat it is a must have.

[@flaplaya]

I'm a visual learner. Really appreciate the beaker osmosis test. I had no idea how osmosis worked and now I do. Huge respect and thanks very much for all your hard work.

[@liamcg2521]

i just want to say that your videos have helped immensely to improve my understanding of certain things in chemistry and given me a very significant amount of information that has helped me a lot with home chemistry, i really appreciate the amount of time and work that you put into your videos and really hope that you continue. definitely one of the best.

[@thomasrogers8239]

Wow KZbin, you mean I don't want to see this video from the only KZbinr that I've been subscribed to for more than ten years? Obviously you know best...

[@AquaMayne]

This video is great, I am obsessed with learning about RO water and this video has been the most extensive

[@svchineeljunk-riggedschoon4038]

This system is very different to what you need for seawater RO, in case you were wondering.

[@kardeef33317]

I used to work as a water plant operator at 2 plants, both were 12 MGD (Million Gallon a Day) plants. One had three 4 MGD banks and the other had four 3MGD banks. Each bank was mad of many 30' tubes and each tube contained many 3' X 8" cartridges made identical to the one shown here. The was came from wells. By controlling the pressure leaving the plant and how many banks were being used we would try to keep the storage tanks between 70% to 90% full. If both plants went down we had between 8 to 14 hours of water depending on the time of day, evening was went water demand was highest. Both plants ran at 85% recovery, meaning from every 100 gallons from the wells 85 left to goto customers and 15 gallons was pumped into a deepwell. Since the plant removed almost everything including fluoride, we had to add that back in and raise the ph up to about 8. The slightly hard water would put a light scale on pipes to protect them, also if your water is soft amd had any metal pipes or fixtures soft water would slowly dissolve those metal into the water you drank. Before my grandfather passed he added a softener to the water that entered his home, keep in mind it switched calcium and magnesium for sodium. I didn't say anything it would have pissed him off, but his doctors had him on a no sodium diet and taking calcium pills.. It never clicked in his mind what it was doing even as he added salt to the softener. Distilled or de-ionized tastes horrible and its the minerals that give water its flavor. FYI most bottled water comes from municipal water, keep in mind the bottler is paying like $0.15 per 1000 gallons and just running it through a charcoal filter to remove the chlorine, which destroys bacteria as it forms in water that has any sunlight reaching it. If you fill a container with tap water ,put it in a fridge with the cap off overnight most of the chlorine will leave it. Now something to scare you. When I was working we tested a lot of different bottled water and in some of the brands the TDS and minerals were so high that if that same water came from any municipal plant, that plant would be immediately shut down and large fines would be issued. About 20 yrs ago a bill was introduced to force water bottles companys to meet municipal standards, the water bottling companys successfully lobbied and got that bill removed.

[@ExplosionsAndFire]

Hey cool video! But as you might be aware from the view numbers, this isn't coming up on my subscription list? Good luck getting it fixed, I know it's been a problem that's plagued your channel a bit over the years

[@NurdRage]

This time it's my fault. I uploaded multiple videos, deleted some, changed others, and set some to unlisted and private. Totally messed things up. Next video should be a bit more straightforward.

[@ExplosionsAndFire]

@@NurdRage still strange that this video is stuck in purgatory somewhere between unlisted and public, it shouldn't even be possible for that to happen

[@dismissing]

I was wondering why I couldn't see this in my subscription page. Thanks for clearing things up!

[@kennyadams9741]

I always thought you watched nurdrage! Big inspiration of my chemistry quest. Especially using households

[@sgvpotter]

Great explanation and example of a setup. I would caution those who don't "need" a RO system to NOT buy one. The most efficient system i've seen, with great city water pressure, takes more than 10 gallons of water to produce every 1 gallon of RO water. The "waste" water from the system is potable water that is just being dumped into the drain. The reason for the pump is to increase the pressure to force the water through the RO filter without the need of so much water waste. coming from a state that had strict water restrictions and long time droughts it was a big concern and it effected my decision on which type of system i installed in my classroom.

[@chriscarley9951]

Doc, extremely informative and thank you for making us think more. I'm glad you're back.

[@thejumperkin]

I'm glad you made this video even if it doesn't include any of your usual experiments. This is some awesome information. I'm sure everyone else appreciates it as well!

[@CzarownicaMarta]

Well it was a good lesson, I don't mind watching it all over again.

[@jfdude8495]

One of the best vids of this channel.

[@Chlorate299]

Excellent video, I actually had no idea how reverse-osmosis filters worked until now.

[@wb5rue]

Greetings from south Texas near the Llano (pronounced Lanno) uplift where our water is so hard you can drive nails with it. :) I live right at the edge of the escarpment and you can see it on a satellite view of south Texas as a large horseshoe shape running southeast to northwest. I wish you success in your new lab. Excellent explanation! I've had a rudimentary understanding of how these systems work but you have greatly enhanced my understanding. We have a water softener for our well water using KCl, because of blood pressure issues, and an RO filter for drinking (and my chemistry). Of course now I will "need" to have a TDS meter (new toy) to "test" our water system.

[@cosmicrider5898]

Ll = y ? Yanno?

[@madxenomorph]

Thank you for explaining it. I live off a well and water is plentiful but I started off with limited filters and are living with delivered bottled water. This video helps explain what I can/should do to feed better water into my softener/non-drinking system AND what the actual reverse osmosis system I plan on getting will do.

[@DoctorMangler]

Thank you so much for posting this, I'm already familiar with these components, it's really great to see how it works chemically.

[@avowitharms]

Always glad to see you posting! Like always such a great video and I can't wait to see more

[@dejayrezme8617]

Thank you very much, I'm quite interested in living "off grid" on a boat. This video explains the basics first. I realize the water makers for boats probably have more or different steps. I'm also somewhat fed up with the hard water we have here, you constantly get lots of residue when cleaning or cooking or boiling water. PS: I'd really love it if you'd expand on this topic, regeneration of filters, how to add a pressure booster, how to increase efficiency, how to dial in the water input/output pressure, maybe pumps that can use the energy of the clean output water to increase energy efficiency. Of course I'm just lazy, just have to learn all this myself ;)

[@Snipa9160]

I live in an area with extremely hard water, and while I ended up getting a full system for the house at large, it's after all my outdoor taps. Eventually, I found a similar cartridge to the deionizaton one, but it's built as a water softener cartridge, that can be regenerated by dumping it into a 5 gallon bucket of saturated water softener salt. We use this and a couple of adapters to soften the water when cars are getting washed. Might be a good option for you if you're dealing with particularly hard water. I've also found that softening the input water makes my reverse osmosis membranes last way longer. The RO system I use for hydroponics, drinking water, and the occassional bit of electronics cleaning, and the suggested replacement is 3 months for all filters other than the RO membrane, which is 1/year.

[@pian1sticpeng_in]

Over the months and years I have realised that the number of subscribers for this channel has been decreasing despite the increase in quality and depth of his videos. This is just sad to know that a sizeable portion of the subscribers were just here for the pop science. Keep up the good work. Been a faithful viewer since 2012 :)

[@seancalifornia510]

Your explanation of the process or action happening with this chemistry video is thorough and impressive. I did have to watch a few of your videos several times. Due to you rather quick rate of speech. But that maybe me just processing each step in my head trying to understanding what your saying. But outstanding presentation Sir...

[@LiborTinka]

Thanks a ton! This saves me a lot of time when choosing the water filtration system.

[@kennyadams9741]

Yay! Your back! I've been watching your vids for like 10 years

[@coma-body-stilllife]

Huge thanks for making this. A while back, I started researching RO and it was incredibly difficult to find practical information like this that covered the full range of applications and filtration tools. It seems like water filter companies and plumbers try to obfuscate information for marketing purpose...

[@queequeg152]

the best free source of free information relating to RO design is dow chemicals reverse osmosis design manual. its very tightly written but scientifically oriented...not very engineer friendly but its exhaustive. purolite also publishes a series of papers on ion exchange specifically. beyond this you will need to spend money on amazon for industry specific and general topic type design manuals.

[@ajayalmighty]

Looking forward to a more detailed video about the ion exchange resins!

[@GuyFawkes911]

Nice video. I am looking forward to the regeneration of the deionization resin video.

[@BadrKarim-x1i]

Very good explanation and very good methodology !! Thank you.

[@roquri]

Freaking youtube turned off my notifications for this channel again! Just found this vid.

[@DCFusor]

I live off-grid and collect rainwater. Most of the year, it's pretty good - other times, pollen...but I have the ability to check the freshly collected stuff and discard bad batches. The collector overflows copiously for almost any rain, I just keep what's left in a cistern in a crawl space. I use an RO system for drinking/cooking and chemistry water. It's such a small fraction of total water use that I don't have any issues running the discard water from the RO system back into the crawl space cistern. I've been doing this for a few years now, and the filters are staying clean, and the water is great - The RO system is used in "an abundance of caution" as the rain here in the mountains of Appalachia is pretty good the way we get it - especially since I'm collecting it off a glass roof - or in other words, solar panels. It really beats distilling and hauling water from the creek. I've had no issues with the level of purity the commercial RO system provides, and no issues with residue building up in the cistern. It doesn't take much flushing, dishwashing, and showering to utterly swamp the return water from the RO system, and it's nice not to waste the water.

[@Martinsp16]

I’ve been waiting for this video long time. Thank you

[@ZoonCrypticon]

As a long-time follower of your channel (+14y) I have to thank you very much for this video and that you started to upload again! May I ask a few questions: - the old, unrolled semipermeable-membrane: could you use it to build a proton-exchange-membrane for a hydrogene- fuel-cell? - could you refresh the worn-out semipermeable-membrane cylinder and use it to desalinate ocean-water (with applied pressure) and bring it to a drinkable level which won´t let you die of thirst if you are the lone survivor on a rubber-boat? - you had so many excellent videos on how to make the different acids, potassium etc., since reuploading those on youtube is maybe impossible by nowadays restrictions, would there be another possibility to view them (on different sites maybe?) Thank you again!

[@NurdRage]

- Proton exchange membranes are a special type of membrane specifically capable of exchanging charged protons. But RO membranes are specifically designed to block charged ions, so they would make terrible PEMs. - As long as you test the water quality to make sure the membrane didn't degrade too much, you can certainly use it for desalination and continued RO purposes. - Two different sites i tried reuploading to themselves went bankrupt years later. So i'm still looking for platforms with longevity.

[@lehandron0]

Thanks for the great video! This is very useful for me to understand the practical side of the RO and DI.

[@peterchang7646]

Canadian eh? I came here after your DI resin regeneration video, and I don't even have DI water.... We got an RO system for the drinking water last summer, and also use it in our aquariums as we have really hard (mostly Calcium says the municipality) water. We run the RO system on softened water. I am a bit of a car nut as well, and was exploring ways to avoid waterspots without towel drying the cars. I'm working on a rainwater system now for the car washing, but I may have environmental contaminates (leaves not filtered out making the way into the storage containers) smog etc. The TDS of the rainwater is 11ppm straight out of the eaves, but rises after sitting in the barrels...

[@udtheaesir]

Yay, NurdRage's back!

[@ga5712]

Great video, thanks I used to work in a lab and the process there was: potable tap water pushed through large (separate) cation & anion beds which were regenerated with hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide. This was then distilled and then put through a reverse osmosis polishing unit with carbon, resin & uv. I shudder at the costs involved but have to say that it was very pure (18 megohm)

[@texasdeeslinglead2401]

You ought to see kidney centers , and type 1 water production . Both are insanely expensive . A kidney center can process 150 gallons of r.o. per hour, typically . The system for such volume is huge and very specifically tailored and modified to deal with unique incoming municipal source . Government oversite is crazy on those systems . Type 1 water is far more expensive to produce , but not quite as regulatory to produce . Basic pharmacy and lab sample RO systems are so pleasent to tinker with when compared to the industrial sized beast versions .

[@notsogreat123]

My setup was $150 at a local hardware store. Our water is about 1200ppm TDS (sodium carbonate but very little calcium) and very cold as well. Both of which slow down water production. So a booster pump was required. Another $100 for that pump. This system produces about a gallon an hour.

[@DYLANTRIES]

The only chemistry I do is maintaining a salt water aquarium, I use RODI only! In a pinch I'll use distilled from Walmart but I appreciate you mentioning us reef keepers

[@rodneyvinen1594]

Brilliant. You did a fantastic job on this video. Thank you for sharing your great work and knowledge.

[@retireeelectronics2649]

Very nice video covering all the aspects. Keep it up

[@firstmkb]

I remember seeing something on another Chem channel using permeable membranes for some sort of electrolysis (chlorate, maybe)? Have you thought about reusing your old membranes and doing more electrochemistry? ARGH! I *just* saw your electrolysis cell with membrane listing from 4 months ago, so thanks for what you do! Loved the details in your video, btw. I saw this a few years ago, and some of it stuck with me! Thanks

[@nickheywood8758]

few things i'll add, I have a 50GPD RODI system and have very low mains water pressure, around 20PSI, with that pressure and a tap water TDS reading of 350ppm+ i was getting 40ppm TDS out of the RO membrane, and very quickly using up DI resin to cope with this. I was also only making 25L or pure water to 100L of waste water. I've since added a booster pump to my system, and now with a 80-90psi input pressure i'm now getting an output TDS reading of 14ppm, and also only making roughly 30L of waste water to 25L of purified water, so in my case the booster pump has reduced costs and increased effienciency enough to make it worthwhile. Also without the pump the system would take 18 hours to make 25L of purified water, whereas now it only takes 2 hours!

[@TheJah1985]

Thanks for this informative video. I consider installing one of those systems 😉 greetings from Germany

[@ChinaTwinCat]

die sind wirklich gut, findest die bei ebay in der aquarium sektion, heißen auf deutsch umkehr osmosefilter und am günstigsten fährst du mit filter und tank für filterwasser seperat. achja, isoliertape nicht vergessen, des weiße gummiartige ausm baumarkt und nit zu fest schrauben sonst bricht das plastik ;)

[@glasslinger]

Here in Texas we have a reactor that produces free distilled water so it is really cheap in the store. (well under a buck a gallon) For the price of the ionization system I can buy all the distilled water I will ever ever need for lab work! The ordinary tap water here in Houston is very good tasting and meets all government standards (sort of) so it is fine for drinking, cooking, and showering.

[@jr3474]

Excellent content.. Thanks.. I learnes a lot

[@ChinaTwinCat]

we actually had two of those in my parents place, one for the house and one for the garden. when i moved out the company we buyed them from didnt sell anymore (original price including instalation was 1500€). a few years later i found the reason, there was a company with crapy filters which didnt get sold till the better ones are out of the way so they spread rumors about them. i made ppm tests on the ones at my parents place with old filters, still cleaning good and tested the crapy filter which was new...the seller still wanted to tell me his version would be better...anyway, after that fiasko i found out, that one can still get the osmose filter, be it a full filter set or just the insidefilters for exchange. if u want a storage u need to buy that seperate, downside is you have to install it yourself, upside is, the full filter without storage watertank is only around 40€. but its still the best filter i found anywhere

[@OneOfDisease]

nurdrage calling himself an amateur makes me the home viewer seem like a total noob that has no business even watching his videos. Love your videos Nurdrage seems like ages since I have seen a notification of one of your uploads hit my feed and I am glad you are doing well and look forward to more quality content.

[@kirbywankenobi]

Excellent video. I was going to ask a question about the RO system we had at work for an anodize process line which had the water softener before the RO input, but I think you answered it. It had a booster pump so the pressures were much higher and I think the calcium was more likely to block the membranes at that pressure. It then had what we called polishing bottles after the RO system. I now know more about the system then I did before. Thanks!

[@buggsy5]

If it has steel filters, it probably was running at around 150 psi. If there was a water softener before the RO unit, then there shouldn't be significant calcium getting to the RO filter.

[@GigsTaggart]

a tip from my industrial experience. If you use hot water your system will get closer to its full rated output.

[@AquaMayne]

Everything Ive read about RO systems say not to use hot water. Plus hot water has way more sediment in it and will make the RO stage not last as long.

[@jong2359]

@@AquaMayne I think that was his point...

[@garbleduser]

I have a Millipore Elix 100 clinical in my home. Rebuilt from broken parts! Ironically, my yearly average tap conductivity is 54uS. I added a TOC monitoring board from a MILLI-Q years ago.

[@anonymouse2428]

Input TDS around 300 around output TDS around 30, which means that your membrane is operating at around 90% efficiency instead of the purported 98%. 1. Connect a booster pump and boost the water pressure to between 50 and 80 PSI. 2. Looking at the amount of sediment on your carbon filter, you should definitely get a sediment filter to remove that before it reaches your carbon block. These measures should get your TDS down to less than 10 PPM.

[@mokouf3]

I have to separate into 2 sessions to fully watch this video. Nonetheless, this is a very good lesson.

[@KD0CAC]

I do a little lab stuff , but was more interested in cleaning water in general , for drinking . The question comes in hearing some decades ago that we should not use for drinking too pure of water , we need some of the minerals in drinking water ? Thanks again

[@Ryan6.022]

Well like the reverse osmosis membrane your digestive system is also a semipermeable membrane and overly pure water could actually dehydrate you. Now in reality your food is usually salty enough to completely counter act this but hey better safe than sorry.

[@kaboobie]

you can easily acquire dual ro membrane rodi systems from most reef aquarium equipment sources.

[@SudaNIm103]

I know filters aren’t terribly expensive but when replacing filters rather than using a brand new Input filter we replace it with the current old output filter and only replace the Output filter with a brand new filter each time. This might not be appropriate for some applications but we’ve never had a problem as a result of this practice.

[@ceriseauthor7155]

I just rebuilt the 18Mohmcm system in my lab, it's surprising how cheap non ozone uv and .05 micron filters are now. On a small lab scale it's not as expensive as you'd think to pump water in a loop (post ro) instead of installing down stream components. If the volume the loop pushes is much higher than the output then you can maintain 18 Mohcm purity.

[@afondlesballons881]

Hey Nurdrage. Great video! That was a good idea take advantage of the lab dismantlement and show us some science about this device. However: Be careful, you're saying something wrong: for osmosis the concentration will not equalize! The thermodynamic equilibrium will be reach when the difference in concentration => osmotic pressure (roughly equal to RTC in the ideal case) will be compensate by the difference in altitude in the reservoirs. If the concentration are equal their is no more osmotic pressure hence the water could not be at different altitudes. The concentrations tend to equalize but the equilibrium is reach before a complete equalization. I say it now because if this is bothering you you can still re-edit the video before someone else see it. I'm Émile by the way, a french amateur chemist. I have been watching you since my very young age :) and now I'am a master student in chemistry. Thank you for the videos you are doing. I would like to discuss with you some day.

[@NurdRage]

Keep watching the video, when i go through reverse osmosis i explain the effects of pressure on the system.

[@afondlesballons881]

@@NurdRage I did watch the entire video and I agree that with what you are saying about the pressure reversing the flow, one could figure out that the equilibrium point is in between the complete equalization and the initial unequalized solutions but I still had this feeling that you were saying that with 2 solutions in a U tube and a membrane, the water would flow through the membrane into the concentrated solution until the concentrations are equal. Nevermind, I think the video was nice anyway. I just wanted to warn you I case that was unintentional.

[@NurdRage]

@@afondlesballons881 I do acknowledge that the explanation isn't perfect and doesn't account for all situations. But i felt like including a full treatment of the topic is beyond the scope of the video. As you know, a true understanding of osmosis requires diving into concepts like thermodynamics, free energy, chemical potential, fugacity and so on. The math alone is beyond most people. Every time i would fix a flaw, another flaw would pop up that i had to explain further to fix that, and so on, and so on. Eventually i was stuck with either spend 2-3 hours explaining everything perfectly, or just spend a few minutes on it, and accept that it wouldn't be perfect. I picked the latter.

[@afondlesballons881]

@@NurdRage Then you picked it right. I do agree with the fact that some shortcuts must be made anyway. I would have got just a bit further saying the flow stops when the osmotic pressure is compensated by the hydrostatic pressure due to water rising but that's how I am... (maybe a bit too picky) Again, thank you for what you're doing. I hope you're still enjoying making this videos as much as we like to watch it.

[@cheerdiver]

Having serviced a RO system for about a decade, I've seen no detrimental effects of re using the output filter as the input/pre filter.

[@texasdeeslinglead2401]

Kidney center?

[@kahleeb6175]

Just watched the old video and had a few questions: -is it possible for there to be more anions or cations passing through the deionisation resin and therefore producing more OH- or H3O+ ions? If this happens though, would the change in pH even be significant? -What does your lab do with the wastewater? -How expensive is your setup and what are the costs of maintaining and replacing part? Thanks for the great content, sorry if you already answered any of these in the new video

[@NurdRage]

- Charge will always be equal, you'll always have electrically neutral water. But in terms of pH, yes you can significantly change the pH if you try hard enough. Let's say you had JUST the anionic exchange resin and passed salt through it. You'd replace the chloride ions with hydroxide. Out the other end you get Sodium hydroxide. The sodium is unchanged since there is no cationic exchange resin. You've now shot up pH since you've made sodium hydroxide. This is why we have two resins and exchange both ions to create neutral water. - My lab just discards wastewater down the drain. - typical costs can be looked up online. it's not that expensive compared to chemicals that can easily cost as much as whole RO DI unit by themselves. -

[@kahleeb6175]

NurdRage awesome, thanks for the response

[@batenkait0s657]

interesting to see how these things work. ive been wanting to obtain or create one myself since carnivorous plants can be somewhat sensitive to the minerals in water (their natural habitats often have low mineral concentrations in the soil so they often aren't well adapted to them) so it would be nice to have one of these myself but it's also interesting to look at the schematics of these systems and try to come up with improvements.

[@superdupergrover9857]

Reverse Osmosis water is also **really** nice for shaving. Also, it's almost a necessity if you do gun bluing as a gunsmith. BTW, if you ever come across an old chemistry calling for "sweet spirit of nitre" it means ethyl nitrite ("sweet spirit" is old timey for ethyl alcohol) It is/was used in some rust bluing solutions because... it works better that way.

[@naasikhendricks1501]

I have Type 2&1 Resins. It is the ones that is used in Pharmaceutic industry. If you interested let me know. Use a UF, Duel GCA, mixed softening Resins(Ca 2+and Mg 2+ and SO4 and CO3), Duel RO, Type 2 Resins, Type 1 Resins. Duel RO is to lower Gas level will allow the system to need lower maintenance.

[@ekbergiw]

Using these continuously can get tricky. My grandpa lived in an area with bad water and he had a large water purification system like this for the whole house. One day there was a crashing sound and water completely soaked the family room. These things can break if they're not changed relatively regularly

[@LandOfSigh]

This video reminded me of my first Ion Exchange Chromatography lab. It went.... much slower than I expected.

[@TomsLab]

Subscribed with notifications turned on, I was never notified and this video didn't even show up in my subscriptions :(

[@Ubya_]

same i found out today by chance

[@skroz1]

Very interesting comments about the UV filter. I use an RO system for treating water in a brewery, but added DI and UV stages to treat water used in the lab. I've placed the UV filter as the final stage -- many out of convenience -- to sterilize any micro organisms that might make it through the RO filter, but now I'm wondering if it might be more useful if placed before the first stage. The water is fine as it is... I'm really just curious.

[@khaitomretro]

Yes, if the pre-treatment water is clear and not cloudy that'll be better. You want to keep microorganisms off the RO filter so it lasts longer, then filter out any contaminants after. Unless you're producing raw beer then you're going to be boiling the wort to sterilise it and I presume you're using a peracetic rince or similar to sterilise FVs so from a beer contamination perspective any microorganisms that did make it through a hole in the RO filter (they shouldn't get through othereuse) won't be an issue anyway. 🍻

[@skroz1]

@@khaitomretro Right, I'm not worried about microorganisms on the hot side nor for sanitizing any FVs or other equipment. The extra DI stage and UV filter are only applied to water used in the yeast lab for cultures, starters, etc.. It's honestly not really necessary there either, at least not at my scale, but I had it so I installed it. I do prefer RO water for preparing acid based sanitizers, though, as we have fairly hard/alkaline water. It's not a problem for the stronger, point-of-use acid cleaners, but sanitizer in spray bottles and buckets quickly becomes cloudy and loses efficacy (unacceptably high pH) without RO water.

[@khaitomretro]

@@skroz1 I propagate clean yeast cultures as well as isolate individual wild yeast strains and prep mixed wild-inoculated cultures in the lab for storage and later brews. Very hard water here too but I mix up small batches of sanitiser as needed so haven't really worried about it. I'm not so concerned about removing minerals so much for that just trying not to introduce anything extra into a brew. Some brews are fully wild inoculated but sometimes we'll trap several wild cultures in another location then do lab sized test brews to pick the best for a style then pitch with that.

[@u0000-u2x]

14:00 this blew my mind... goes to show how weak of a force gravity actually is

[@samwoo7935]

Thanks. Great description of purifying and deionizing water. Is there any advantage of connecting more than 1 RO filter in series to improve the purity of the water? Seems like this should reduce any impurities although it would waste more water.

[@broregret]

A previous employer had an industrial de-ionizer but while its output was very, very low in TDS it did have a strong organics odor left by the many organic solvents used in PC Board fabrication. When attempting to work on a project in life sciences, I had to explain that the DI water called for and the DI water we produced was not an acceptable equivalent. We ended up buying barrels of Millipore water because flammable water, even flammable DI water, is not a good thing for cellular analytics. Amusingly, i now work on instruments that determine water purity among other things.

[@evan2587]

Oh shit he's still alive!

[@bobmoandfriend]

I lol'd at 'after all, as chemists, we should take advantage of the few times when we know what we're doing' xD

[@williameagan9200]

Good video. How does rain water compare with distilled, deionized and tap water for quality?

[@deldrinov]

I didn't get this video on my subscription feed. Good job KZbin!

[@paulapappelbaum6983]

Do you pickle your membrane when you don't use it?

[@JDogggg69]

Will this degas the water as well or is that a separate step?

[@dazzlecraft]

nice Abercrombie sweater yo, does it have aa cross under the back collier?

[@sammy5576]

Could you cascade two membranes in series to reduce the load on the ion resin,

[@Alexander_Sannikov]

it's not a typical nurdrage vid as it does not really try to be a scientific breakthrough, but i found it very interesting and well explained nonetheless. there's something I didn't understand though : why is there a carbon filter before and after the membrane? isnt it better to have 2 of those filters before the membrane to make it last longer?

[@NurdRage]

Modern systems are better. Mine is 15+ years old and not really all that good.

[@lightdark00]

This video also explained how a zero water filter works. It’s all resin and activated carbon in the filter.

[@thenewbgamer6416]

Would it be possible yo use water from refillable gallons?

[@jondoe9581]

Will this remove lead as well ? My town has sent a notice several times and I have bad town water, needing to remove contaminates.

[@bobwerner6512]

this is very helpful.......on the other hand I have questions that I need help with I guess I should be a patron LOL as always you do give great info Thanks

[@htomerif]

I don't understand why even most commercial distillation systems don't use any kind of heat exchanger. Thats been on my list of things to do. You should be able to distill water with a tiny fraction of the energy cost that boiling the water and venting the heat requires.

[@dragonamp2]

Working in the pathogen assay world, water purity is extremely important, especially ensuring RNA is not present in our water, or any other chemical. So we pay a fair chunk of change on purchasing molecular grade RNA and RNAse free water.

[@JustAnotherAlchemist]

1: Split the water into hydrogen and oxygen. 2: Filter it. 3: Dry it. 4: Filter it again. 5: Burn it. 6: Condense the vapors.

[@JesusHChrist2000]

I'm looking forward to more details on the Ion exchange resin. I need to exchange a Potassium Ion for a more water soluble Sodium Ion for a project. I think an indicating Cation exchange resin will do the trick.

[@garbleduser]

Indeed! How do you regenerate a mixed bed resin?

[@mrtini102]

@@garbleduser With an acid and base flush. Something like NaOH and HCl one after the other with a rinse in between. Haven't done it for a while so might not be 100% correct but its the basic principal

[@brianwhalen3787]

@@mrtini102 It's best to separate the resins before regenerating

[@Jm4steam]

Is this, plus distillation, how they process ultra pure water? (used in particle detection)

[@richs65treebucketservice24]

What salt is it that evaporates through the Synthetic, Distillate, Evaporation Process......??..Organic...or Inorganic....??....

[@nugfairy]

My tap water comes out yellow. I got a 4 stage osmosis counter top filter. Works great and doesn't take up much space!

[@RoamingRomanticsWithJR]

Hi NurdRage, great video as always ....I was just wondering if the RO membrane was polyamide and not polyimide? I’m used to hearing of polyamide RO membranes.

[@JxH]

Resin Beds in consumer water softeners are regenerated with salt water brine, sometimes several times per week. I wonder if you could regenerate your Resin Bed media with a similar process, to save money? Your salt demo hints that it might be feasible. [EDIT: @25m35s LOL...]

[@Ubya_]

what, this video has been out for 6 days and i notice only now?! i even checked the bell, youtube is doing it again

[@rayniac211]

Maybe distillation would be more energy efficient if it was done with sunlight. Like if you had a big lens or a mirror that focused light so you could boil water with it. Run the water through a carbon filter prior to that and you could end up with very pure water.

[@jong2359]

If you can tell me how to focus light on a clear fluid, I will eat my hat.

[@matiaskok2457]

@@jong2359 You can focus the light on the vessel that is holding the water.

[@jong2359]

@@matiaskok2457 It will also destroy the vessel you are focusing the light on if you are wanting to attain boiling temperatures.

[@elkbloodheart1188]

If the carbon filters are spent and chlorine passes thru damaging the osmosis membrante, does the polymer end up in the output water? is it harmfull to health?

[@garbleduser]

How do you regenerate a mixed bed resin?

[@PlasmaHH]

Would you say using the additional carbon is necessary if you don't have chlorinated water?

[@NurdRage]

yeah, probably unnecessary if you know your water doesn't have chlorination. If it's a natural source, like a well, then it might be prudent instead to install a sediment filter to remove particulates.

[@JeeTinator]

That purification system you have there looks very familiar to what I have in my House sense early 2000s to purify our water. I get it strait from the well so I have a feeling that may have something to do with it?

[@GilmerJohn]

You might want to "promote" the post carbon filter to the pre-filter position and install a new filter it its place.

[@bobwerner6512]

I have been looking at your chip board in behind and makes me wonder about what you are doing with your Fume hood I think you have touched on this before but maybe not your new one. can you give us some ideas please like where the exhaust "air" is going and if one needs to scrub it before it is set free

[@Shroommduke]

I believe I heard RO water will eat / dissolve metal pipes and that all pluming needs to be RO appropriate... Please correct me if this is wrong in any way.

[@weijholtz]

I have an air dehumidifier in my basement, during summer it can produce several litres of water per day, is that water usable for something? (lots of particles (air dust) in it, but it could be filtered out i guess) it's a destillation kind of isn't it?

[@robertpoggie4883]

Could this system be used to purify salt water?