Posts Tagged ‘water filter’

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Water Filtration System in a Straw

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

LifeStraw makes previously contaminated water drinkable by removing bacteria and viruses.

Sometimes, it’s the simplest technologies that have the greatest potential impact on people’s lives. Take the Vestergaard Frandsen Group’s mobile personal filtration system, otherwise known as LifeStraw. It is a powder-blue plastic tube—much thicker than an ordinary straw—containing filters that make water teeming with typhoid-,cholera- and diarrhea-causing microorganisms drinkable. Now, to be clear, we do not sell this item…yet. We just love to report what’s going on out there in the water purification world.

The filters, made up of a halogenated resin, kill nearly 100 percent of bacteria and nearly 99 percent of the viruses that pass through LifeStraw. A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill evaluation tested the device’s performance in water containingEscherichia coli B and Enterococcus faecalisbacteria and the MS2 coliphage virus as well as iodine and silver. The results indicated that LifeStraw filtered out all contaminants to levels where they don’t pose a health risk to someone drinking the water.

But the device does not filter heavy metals such as iron or fluoride nor does it remove parasites like cryptosporidium or giardia, although the Switzerland-based company’s CEO, Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, says there is a version of LifeStraw available to relief groups in Bangladesh and India that can filter arsenic.

At less than 10 inches (25 centimeters) long, the device can filter up to 185 gallons (700 liters) of water, estimated to be about a year’s supply for one person. The device is no longer usable when its filters become too clogged to pass water through, typically after a year of hard use.

The success of the personal filtration system led Vestergaard Frandsen to introduce earlier this month its LifeStraw Family device, an instant microbiological purifier that provides about 2.6 gallons (10 liters) of safe drinking water in an hour and about 4,000 gallons (15,000 liters) over its life span for a family of six. LifeStraw Family is designed to sieve dirt, parasites, bacteria and viruses, and will be available starting in May.

Larry Greenemeier

www.scientificamerican.com

 

 

 

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Home Brewing the best beer!

Tuesday, January 29th, 2013

We here at Filter Pure have a lot of customers that come in asking us questions like, “What kind of water should I use to brew beer?” There’s a saying, “If you don’t drink from your tap water, don’t brew beer with it.”

A lot of different styles of beer around the world were created based on the type of water in that area. For instance, people who want to make English style stouts usually put chips and salt into their water. You can even doctor your water to match different locations around the world by adjusting the temperature of the water. But first, before adding salts and adjusting the temperature, you want to make sure your water is filtered.

Whether your brewery looks like this…

…or this

…or even this…

…the water you use should be well filtered for quality taste!

There are many ways you can filter your water; we recommend using Costguard’s 10″ housing unit, the CGS-10 (EV9100-10) made by EVERPURE. This system is simple and inexpensive. The CGS-10 is made up of a 10″ low profile Slim Line single bowl housing that is manufactured of durable polypropylene and has excellent chemical resistance. It includes a water pressure gauge which is equipped with a pressure relief button to relieve water pressure during cartridge changes.

It also includes wall mounting bracket and hardware for fast and easy installation. This system is shipped fully assembled. All you have to do is choose the appropriate cartridge for your needs. A CG53-10 (EV9108-53) is highly recommended because of its .5 micron rating, and its carbon effectively reduces unwanted tastes, odor and chlorine. But if you have any type of softening resin already in your water, then use a higher micron rating, such as the CG5-10 (EV910815). Its specifications are the same as the CG53-10 except its micron rating is 5.

Water filtration and all the steps involved can seem confusing. You’ll find yourself scratching your head, not even knowing where to begin. Well, we’re here to help make it simple for you.

Your home brewed beer has the potential to taste EXACTLY the way you want it to. And the first step to getting it there is making sure you have the right water filtration.

Visit our website www.filterpure.com, or call us at 800-942-7873 with any questions you might have. We’re not just here to sell, we’re here to help!

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What Your Unfiltered Water Contains…

Thursday, November 1st, 2012

Think about where your water comes from….and we don’t just mean the sink! Expand your mind and remember that water comes from unclean, natural resources like rivers and lakes, which contain pollution and contaminants that are unfit for consumption. To be clean, the water should undergo a number of treatments necessary to make it drinkable.

Specifically in tap water is:

  • Toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, copper, cadmium and aluminum
  • Volatile organic chemicals, such as pesticides and herbicides
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Chemicals from irresponsible manufacturers
  • Personal care chemicals
  • Household cleaning products
  • Water treatment additives such as chlorine, fluoride, and other toxic chemicals
  • Bacteria and viruses such as giardia, cryptosporidium, coliform and E-coli
  • Toxic Heavy Metals

Water purifiers are specifically designed to eliminate or reduce these certain pollutants that are in our drinking water. They also improve the quality and taste of the water by
eliminating its chlorine content.

It is virtually impossible to know what is in tap water at any given time because municipal water quality as well as private well water varies from place to place, season to season, and house to house.

Even if all of the toxic metals could be completely filtered at the local water treatment facility, they could still end up in your drinking water because rust and sediment build up in the water pipes within our homes. Even this minimal exposure can cause symptoms similar to the flu, such as headaches, diarrhea, cramps, nausea or vomiting.

The only way we can have any control over the quality of water we drink is by having a personal water filter system. Filtered drinking water is the most reliable and least expensive way to get healthy water!

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Home Water Filter Maintenance

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

Many people have home water filters in their homes, but are they keeping them up with a regular maintenance routine? Keeping your filter system in top working order is key to having clean and great tasting drinking water. Many filters have suggested guidelines for home water filter maintenance, but there are those who still need assistance.

For those who need a simple plan to follow for keeping their home water filter in working order, here’s 4 guidelines for home water filter maintenance:

4 Guidelines for Home Water Filter Maintenance

  • Monitoring – Depending on which home water filter you purchase, there are different ways to monitor it for problems or the need to replace it. Some filter systems will have a display that shows its status; other may show a simple read-out that changes color when it’s time to replace the filter system. No matter which type of system you choose, ensure you regularly monitor your filter for optimal drinking water quality.
  • Cleaning – Not every unit requires replacement; sometimes they only need a good cleaning. Again, keep a regular monitoring schedule of your unit and if needed, follow manufactures guidelines to clean your home water filter system.
  • Testing – Sometimes, even if the display shows a problem and you’ve cleaned the unit, testing of the unit might tell you if something is going on. For some home water filters, you can test it yourself, while others may require a professional to come in.
  • Replacement – There comes a time when no matter how times you clean or replace parts, the unit needs replacement. When it comes time to replace your home water filter, ensure you go through the manufacture’s recommended guidelines for replacing the unit. If you need assistance, ask a professional to ensure the unit is replaced properly.

To ensure optimal quality and performance from your water filter system, it’s best to have a regular home water filter maintenance routine. By following the steps we outlined above, you can be sure your filter system will stay in tip-top shape and keep giving you and you family safe and great tasting drinking water.

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Water Filters Vs. Water Softeners – Which Do You Need?

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Depending on where you live, your drinking water may need some type of filtration, but which is right for you? Do you need a water filter or a water softener? What if you need both? How do you know which one is right for you?

Well, to answer these questions, let’s take a look at what water filters and water softeners do, then you can decide on the best solution for you and your family’s water filtration needs:

Water Softeners

So, what exactly does a water softener do and why do you need it? Well, simply, they soften hard water. Hard water is full of minerals and deposits such as calcium and magnesium. Although no harm will come to you from hard water, it’s nightmare for cleaning showers, tubs and causes problems for pipes and plumbing fixtures.

By using a water softener, you will break down the hardness or materials in the water. Different softeners use different methods including: ion, electrical and magnetics. It’s best to get your water tested to find out for sure, if you have hard water. Then decide on what method works best for you.

Water Filters

Without purifying our drinking water, you could consume things that contribute to disease and illness. To prevent this, most water treatment facilities employ chemicals such as chlorine to treat the water. This, however, introduces new problems for us. I mean, you would you want to drink something that resembles the water in a swimming pool? I didn’t think so. So counter this, there’s water filters.

Basically, water filters take out all the bad things in your water like the chlorine and other chemicals – leaving you with clean tasting and smelling drinking water. The most common filter is a carbon-based filter – it can remove the majority of chemicals in your water.

What’s Best For Your Water?

For many a water filter is all they will ever need. For others, a water softener plus water filter is a requirement. Remember how we said to test your water? Well, if you find out you have hard water, it’s best to get yourself a combination filter and softener to clean out the impurities in your drinking water. Otherwise, stick with a single water filter for your water purification needs.

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Personal Water Filtration is Big Business

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

It is estimated that from 1990 to 2006, global bottled water sales (that is, sales of water ranging from “PET” single-serving bottles to larger water cooler “carboys”) more than quadrupled, topping $61 billion. Since then, profits have been on the rise, totaling a 51% increase in the past 5 years.

Along with this massive industry goes massive pollution. Though technically recyclable, the vast majority of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) water bottles are disposed of improperly, and thus, will not be reused, contributing to the growing problem of landfill accumulation. As the bottled water industry grows, so does our global pollution epidemic.

All is not lost, however. Recognizing this looming danger, several companies, including Seychelle Water Filtration Products, have stepped up to the plate. As a worldwide leader in the development, manufacture and sale of a proprietary filtration system for portable water bottles, Seychelle has their sights set on ending global abuse of natural resources for a single serving of water.

It seems as if the idea is catching on as well. In the last five fiscal quarters, Seychelle has experienced marked growth.

“We are seeing growing demand for some of our newer products such as our stainless steel bottles, straws and pure water bags and pumps,”

said Seychelle President and CEO Carl Palmer,

“All of these have been redesigned to improve performance and enhance consumer appeal and are being widely used in problem drinking water areas in many different markets of the world.”

In fact, over the past few weeks, Seychelle has received several orders representing over $1 million in new business.

With Seychelle’s products, and those from companies like it, the world can put an end to its dependency on plastic. No matter where you are, or what water source happens to be close by – a river, a lake, a pond, and yes, a tap, you can rest assured that you’ll have the clean water you need, without the pollution the earth doesn’t.

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Revolutionary Personal Water Filtration

Monday, November 29th, 2010

Over 1.2 billion people around the globe don’t have access to potable water. Many of them live in the continent of Africa. So it should come as no surprise that a solution to this problem might come from an inventor who lives there.

Meet Dr. Eugene Cloete. A microbiologist by training, Cloete is currently the Dean of Natural Sciences at the University of Stellenbosch, just outside Cape Town, South Africa. In addition to his teaching ability, Dr. Cloete apparently has a knack for invention. With nine patents to his name, the first of which he earned at the age of 23, Eugene has adopted a way of thinking different than that of most peoples’. “[creativity is] like reading and writing,” said Cloete, “the more you use it, the better you get.”

With much of South Africa’s tap water riddled with disease-causing bacteria, heavy metals, and pesticide residue, something needed to be done. In short, Dr. Cloete has invented a disposable filter, which looks very similar to a tea bag, to filter water as it is poured from a bottle. Each filter is capable of ridding bacteria, heavy metals, and harmful chemicals from about 15 liters of water before it needs to be thrown away.

Cloete, an expert on inhibiting growth of bacterial slime, says he came up with the idea while on a faculty tour of his current department. He happened to notice a tea bag sitting on the break room counter when he started to explore the idea. It wasn’t until he watched a presentation at the university during which a student demonstrated how to spin nanofibers – filaments finer than human hair – that he figured out how to do it. He combined this technology with both that of the anti-bacterial membranes he had already been working on, and the traditional water filtration component activated carbon to yield the filter.

Since announcing the invention in July, Dr. Cloete and his team of two post-doctoral colleges have received hundreds of inquiries from excited philanthropists, aid organizations, and retailers. This little tea bag is sure to save lives.

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Alaska Residents Get Creative with Water Filtration

Saturday, November 20th, 2010

As the direct result of petroleum contamination, “North Pole,” Alaska residents have been forced to “think outside the box” when it comes to their water supply. Thanks to a combination of readily available commercial water filtration technologies, these citizens have successfully lowered the level toxic contaminants to non-detectable levels.

It seems that over the past decade, sulfolane, a chemical used in the refinement of oil, had been seeping into groundwater and private water wells. While the exact cause of the contamination is yet to be determined, the most likely cause is a gasoline spill which occurred within the town limits over a decade ago. The contamination was discovered recently, and has been detected in hundreds of homes in the area, at readings between 50 ppb and 250 ppb – levels above federally recommended concentrations, but not enough to make laboratory animals sick.

In response to this problem, Flint Hills Resources, the firm which in 2004 bought the refinery responsible for the spills has developed some innovating solutions. By partnering with Fairbanks-based “Ecowater Systems,” Flint Hills Resources has conceived a point-of-entry water filtration unit to address the problem. In this unit, the contaminated water is first processed by sediment filter. Secondly, it is softened using a standard ion-exchange system. Next, a hydrogen peroxide pump breaks down the sulfolane, after which point a combination mixing chamber and charcoal filter gives the drinking water a final clean.

The system has so far been successfully been implemented in 5 “test homes” in the area. Flint Hills Resources, which is currently providing bottled water to affected residents hopes to implement similar water filtration systems in more than 150 homes within the next few months.

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Nylon Filter Housings Offer Economical Alternative

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

Traditionally, water filter housings to be used in high-temperature applications needed to be constructed of stainless or carbon steel. They were difficult and costly to produce, they were subject to oxidization (the result of years of exposure to chemicals and reaction-catalyzing temperatures), and they would retain heat even hours after the water supply had been shut off, making maintenance time consuming.

In recent years however, an alternative to these costly housings has arrived: the nylon filter. Actually composed of a glass-reinforced nylon, these filter housings are more than capable of performing the same tasks of their now-outdated steel counterparts, housing standard high-temperature sediment and carbon filter cartridges with ease.

Not only are nylon filter housings cheaper to purchase and maintain, but many models can withstand the same high temperatures as traditional steel housings – in most cases, <1 psi pressure drop at 8 gpm. Furthermore, because they are of a newer design than high-temperature housings comprised of steel, many nylon housings feature options of many modern filter housings. Most nylon housings come standard with a Viton O-ring seal for extra chemical compatibility while most offer options such as an integrated pressure-release valve on the cap which can either be purchased with the filter, or retro-fitted afterward.

Nylon filters are also ideally suited to industrial applications. Though they should not be used with ketones, an excellent chemical compatibility allows glass-reinforced nylon filter housings to handle organic solvents, sea water, alcohol, petroleum, and vegetable oils.

New developments continue to be made in filtration systems each year, making purchase, maintenance, and repair easier and more cost effective than ever.

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Hydroblend Cuts Long-Run Costs

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

For applications in which water is heated past its boiling point, it is advisable to employ measures designed to reduce the level of lime and other minerals in the water service to safeguard against scale buildup in water boilers. Such buildup can lead to machinery damage, and if left unaddressed, failure.

While the most common example of applications in which this is a concern is the brewing of coffee and other fine coffee beverages, the filtration of, and control of scale in, water used in steam equipment is extremely important. Because each piece of steam machinery, such as those used in the food service industry, by definition contains a boiler in which water is heated past its boiling point, harmful scale buildup will result if water used is not appropriately treated.

There are two popular methods of addressing the presence of scale in a water supply, depending on whether scale has already formed or not. They are:

Polyphosphate Granules

Generally used to clean boilers which have already suffered an amount of scale buildup, polyphosphate granules, such as Everpure’s proprietary formula “ScaleKleen,” remove limescale quickly, easily, and safely in an environmentally friendly manner from OCS brewers, steam, warewashing, and other equipment. Because activated citric acid is the typically the primary ingredient in these non-toxic blends, they are safer to skin and won’t burn clothing like conventional deliming acids. In addition, they are sewer system disposable, so you can pour it down the drain.

Hydroblend Scale Sticks

“Hydroblend” scale sticks are the second component of a two-stage water filter designed by Everpure. Scale inhibitor feeders (scale sticks) reduce scale inline by dispensing a controlled amount of Hydroblend, a sophisticated blend of polyphosphate compound which inhibits scale. As such, scale sticks present in dual-filter systems designed for OCS brewers, steam, warewashing, and other applications significantly reduce scale inline, effectively preventing scale from ever forming.

While both methods are used in modern commercial settings, each approach has its advantages. Polyphosphates have been used in the prevention of mineral scale and corrosion control for years as a cost-effective method of controlling scale within a water supply. Hydroblend products on the other hand, are comparatively new, and marginally more expensive. There are however, several advantages. Hydroblend products are:

  • 100% active, so there is no residual product left over.
  • specifically designed to provide mineral scale prevention and corrosion control in high temperature and high hardness applications, while phosphate granules are not.
  • designed to ensure that the product feed rate is consistent over predictable time periods.
  • available in various configurations allowing it application to many different processes.

Regardless of which approach is used, it is important to monitor and control scale levels within a water supply. Doing so will prevent costly repairs and possible replacements.

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