Water Quality

The Science Of Water

There is a well-established technology of water. There is a science of water and engineers have worked with water throughout recorded history. But there are always new problems and new ways of working with water to meet new uses and new developments in technology. This is what makes mere simple water so interesting.

New water treatment technology has established the point-of-use (POU) application. The most generally used systems were the distiller system, Reverse Osmosis (RO) system and carbon block filtration. The most recent development is the alkaline water system, also known as magnetized water. As such, the standard of drinking water has been raised to a higher level. This allows vast variety of application from household drinking water to medical and industrial application.

Water Facts

Water is in liquid form between 0º to 100ºC (32º to 212ºF)
Water is in solid at or below 0ºC (32ºF)
Earth's rate of rainfall is approximated at 340 cubic mile per day (16 million tons per seconds)

Unit of measurement

  • 1 gallon s = 8.33 pounds = 3.778 kilograms
  • 1 gallons = 3.785 liters
  • 1 cubic foot = 7.5 gallons = 28.35 liters
  • 1 ton = 240 gallons
  • 1 acre foot = 43,560 cubic feet = 325,900 gallons

Drinking Water Standards

Below are just some drinking water quality standards, with reference from the US public health service or the world health organization.


Visit the WHO web site at for full detail explanation on acceptability of drinking water.

For the above parameters, the most general and basic measurement for drinking water is pH and TDS.

pH

pH is a unit of measure that describes the degree of acidity or alkalinity of a solution. It is measure on a scale of 0 to 14. Technically, pH is defined as the negative logarithms of the hydrogen ion activity or concentration.

pH = -log[H+]

The value of pH 7.0 represents neutrality. Below pH 7.0 is acidic and above 7.0 is alkaline. The easiest way to measure pH is using the Trans Senz pH tester. A more professional range of pH meter like and  WalkLAB pH meter for field testing and the Benchtop pH meter BP3001 are more suitable for industrial and medical application.

TDS

TDS (Total Dissolved Solid) is the measure of the total solid dissolved in water. The unit of measurement is express as ppm (parts-per-million) or 1 milligram of solid dissolved in 1 liters of distilled water.

The method to acquire TDS reading is by the conversion of conductivity units. Conductivity is the ability of a material to conduct, that is allows electrical current to flow. Substances with high conductivity are copper, silver, metal in general. Substances with low conductivity are glass, ceramic, plastics and water (H20).

Pure Water is not conductive. It becomes conductive when there are ions present. Hence Conductivity meters are generally used to measure purity of water. Below are some references of types of water and their conductivity ranges and the product to use for measurement:

Type of Water's Conductivity and its Measuring Instrument

Today's point-of-use systems are not maintenance free. To keep check on these systems, the best and most convenient way is to test the TDS or Conductivity measurement of the product water like the Trans Senz TDS are excellent tools to check the system. Industrial application and in hospitals can use the RO meter or the WalkLAB Conductivity Pro meter to take precise measurements.

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