The Many Industrial And Laboratory Applications Of Deionized Water

By Author: Jo Alelsto
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Around two decades ago, the use of highly-purified water was only limited to a few commercial and industrial applications. At present, there are two common forms of purified water being utilized, the distilled and the deionized water (Dl). Although the purification of water can be done through other processes, including carbon filtration, reverse osmosis, micro porous filtration, ultraviolet oxidation, ultra filtration and electro dialysis. This high-purity water product is now considered a very important ingredient in a lot of pharmaceutical, medical, laboratory, manufacturing, food processing and a wide variety of industrial processes, as well as for rinsing the vehicle at the local car wash.

In recent years, a combination of the processes mentioned earlier, have been implemented to produce water with very high purity, as such its trace contaminants are measured in parts per billion (ppb) or parts per trillion (ppt). Deionized water is currently utilized in most science, technology and engineering industries, and is manufactured in a varied range of purity levels. This type of purified water undergoes a process ...
... wherein its mineral ions are removed, like cations from calcium, sodium, iron, copper and anions such as chloride and bromide. The process of deionization employs the use of specially-produced ion exchange resins, and these work to filter and bind the mineral salts from water. Since a large part of the impurities in water consist of dissolved salts, deionization creates a higher level of purity that is commonly akin to distilled water. The process of deionization however, does not remove most of the uncharged organic molecules, viruses or bacteria, except with the use of specially-formulated strong base anion resins that can eradicate gram-negative bacteria. This chemical process can be done continuously and is rather an inexpensive process, through the electrodeionization method.

The process of deionization: In order to create deionized water, scientists and chemists remove ions from water via an ion exchange method. In return, positively charged ions and negatively charged ions are exchanged for hydrogen (H+) and hydroxyl (OH-) ions, because of the resin's greater affinity for other ions. The process of exchanging ions takes place on the binding sites of the resin beads. Once the ions are exhausted of their exchange capacity, the resin bed is renewed or reinvigorated with concentrated acid and caustic, reducing or removing the accumulated ions through physical displacement, and only hydrogen or hydroxyl ions are left in place. For most laymen, it should be remembered that the process of deionization does not get rid of the hydroxide or hydronium ions from water because water is known to self-ionize itself to reach an equilibrium, which would lead to the removal of the water itself.

Aside from its importance as a laboratory reagent and ingredient, deionized or distilled water is also commonly utilized to top up lead acid batteries that are used in most trucks, buses and cars. This is the case, because if vehicles only use pure tap water, the presence of foreign ions generally found here are known to cause significant reduction in the projected lifespan of an automobile's battery. This all helps to explain why deionized water is the preferred fluid for use in most automotive cooling systems at present. Because of the heightened levels of the minerals and ions found in tap water, it may lead to the quick corrosive of the vehicle's internal engine components and may also lead to the faster decrease of the anti-corrosion additives, which are present in most antifreeze formulas. Deionized water is also a very vital component in an automobile's main cooling systems, where the distilled water intersperses or mixes with hybrid system coolant, for preventing further corrosion of components.
Jo is a writer for 'The-Water-Company.com' (http://www.the-water-company.com), a reputable UK stationed high quality water manufacturer for more than thirty years, producing products such as deionized water and demineralized water to a an extensive variety of customers in UK, Europe and the rest of the world. If your company has a laboratory water source requirement for use in calibration, for testing and analysis of water soluble ingredients or for washing laboratory equipment and glassware then check out The-Water-Company.com.