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Posts Tagged ‘health’

Are Charcoal Water Filters Any Good?

November 22nd, 2009 Peter Abertoning No comments

If you’ve read about the problems with drinking contaminated water you might be getting interested in water filtration. You will have heard of charcoal water filters or carbon water filters or even activated carbon water filters. What are these water filters?

Charcoal is a substance created by heating organic matter to high temperature in the absence of oxygen and a charcoal water filter is one that uses charcoal for the filtration process. The organic material commonly used is coconut husks.

Charcoal has various properties, primarily that it is extremely porous and this is what is necessary for successful water filtration. These pores allow water, and contaminants, to pass through and for the contaminants to be absorbed by the carbon by means of chemical attraction, because many carbon based or organic compounds are chemically attracted to carbon.

That is what charcoal, or carbon, water filters are. So what are activated carbon, or what is known as AC, filters? These filters use a form of carbon that is way more porous than normal carbon, and this is created during the manufacturing process.

It’s so porous in fact that it can have up to 20000 square yards of surface area per ounce of activated carbon. That’s really porous.

You need to replace the filters occasionally in an AC water filter because the filter gradually clogs up with contaminants as they are absorbed by the carbon.

An activated carbon water filter works well filtering a wide range of contaminants, but doesn’t filter all of them, and for this reason the best water filters use a multi stage water filtration process. Not only is the carbon block, or activated carbon filter used but there is a second stage to the process that removes the contaminants that are not removed by activated carbon filtration.

And in the very best water purifiers available there is no reliance on AC filtering only, because very good it is not sufficient on it’s own. There is a second stage to the filtering process and this stage is used to filter contaminants that the first stage leaves behind, like nasty lead. And the removal of lead is achieved by an ion exchange process replacing lead ions with harmless potassium ions.

And the second stage of the best water filters removes tiny organisms that remain in the water after stage 1 like giardia and cryptosporidium through the use of an extremely fine filtration process. These are the most dangerous water contaminants.

There you have the basics of water filtration by use of carbon, or what is known as charcoal water filters, or activated carbon water filters. The activated carbon is not 100% successful in removing all contaminants, but when used in a 2 stage process designed to remove the contaminants that are left behind by the AC filter, it works exceedingly well. You should expect around 99% of lead to be removed, for example.

I spend time discussing the worlds best water filters on my website.

Would you like to learn more about the Best Water Filters? Or about Charcoal Water Filters? Visit Peter’s Website the Best Drinking Water Filters.

Why Would You Use A Portable Water Filter?

November 18th, 2009 Peter Abertoning No comments

Many people are interested in a water filter for their home to ensure safe drinking water. Since our drinking water tends to contain a lot of impurities, such as chlorine and pharmaceutical drugs, water filters can be a great option. They can work to remove all of the impurities and provide you with drinking water that is both clean and safe. If you are interested in a water filter, then you may want to think about a portable water filter.

Here’s some benefits of portable water filters that you won’t get from regular water filters, good though they are.

Now if you can afford to have several water filters or a whole house system then great, but if you can only afford one then a portable water filter is the best choice. There’s one major advantage of a portable filter. Easy installation.

Since a portable purifier can be moved from one place to the next, they tend to be the easiest type of water purification system to use. Depending on the specific filter, its likely that all you will need to do is attach the filter to the faucet in order to experience clean purified water.

And there’s more. A good portable water filter will work by purifying the water without the use of chemicals. Some water purification systems use chemicals to purify the water, but for many people that defeats the purpose. There are many portable filter options that clean your water without use of chemicals.

A portable water purifier is also a great choice for those who like to travel a lot.

Wherever you want to go you can take your water filter, even if it’s just when you go on vacation. Or you can even move it from room to room in the house if you wish.

So as you can see there are advantages of using a portable water filter that don’t apply to other water purification systems. Easy to use and easy to take with you for someone who travels or holidays a lot.

There’s a number of different brands available, and they differ widely in price, and features of course. So you need to compare water filters before you buy because it’s important that you buy the one best suited to your needs.

If you can afford it of course you ought to buy a whole house water filter, then you have clean water to drink in the house, as well as clean water to wash and shower in. But you need a portable water filter to take away too.

Visit my website to learn more about water filters in general, as well as portable water filters.

Peter writes about natural health and has websites about the Best Water Filters as well as Natural Skincare.