What exactly is a charcoal water filter, and what is “activated carbon”?

If you’ve been learning a little about water filters because you’re convinced of the benefits of drinking clean purified water you will have come across “charcoal water filters” or “carbon water filters” or “activated carbon water filters”. What are these?

A charcoal water filter is a water filter that uses charcoal for the filter process to remove the impurities. Charcoal is carbon that has been created by heating organic material in the absence of oxygen. The good ones are derived from coconut husks.

Charcoal is quite porous and absorbs many compounds in it’s pores and it is this quality that is relied on for successfully filtering the water. That’s why charcoal is used in gas masks, it absorbs things quite easily, both from gases and liquids. The pores are tiny holes made in the charcoal, or carbon, and the contaminants are absorbed into the charcoal. This is achieved by means of chemical attraction, because a wide range of organic compounds are attracted to carbon.

What then, is activated carbon? Activated carbon is charcoal that has been treated with oxygen in the manufacturing process to result in a much higher percentage of pores. In other words it is more porous than ordinary charcoal. The best charcoal water filters use activated carbon.Aquasana water filters, considered to be the best water filters, there is a 2 stage filtration process. The second stage is used to filter those contaminants not removed by the first, like lead. This is achieved by an ion exchange process where the lead ions are replaced by potassium ions. Potassium is a mineral that occurs naturally in water and is not harmful.

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

Some activated carbon filters do not remove heavy metals like lead, but Aquasana water filters remove 99% of lead, as well as synthetic chemicals which are not removed by some other forms of water purification. Read the rest of this entry

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Drinking clean water is essential, but why would you bother to use a shower water filter?

Shower water filters. Why would you bother? Yes there’s no doubt that drinking clean water is essential to our health, but why do you need to filter shower water?

After all, you just wash in it don’t you, you don’t drink the shower water.

Even so there are good reasons to use shower water filters in every shower. Lets have a look at what they are. Here’s 4 good reasons to use a shower water filter.

1. Chlorine. Now it isn’t good to drink chlorine. If you have chlorine in your water (and who doesn’t) you need the best drinking water filter you can get. Drinking chlorine is not good for you, and some are even concerned that chlorine in drinking water can cause cancer.

But chlorine in the shower water is still a problem. Because some of the water that lands on your skin soaks into your skin, and your body. And chlorine goes in with it. So in effect you have the same result as if you had drunk unfiltered water. And hot water opens the pores and allows more chlorine in.

2. As you shower the hot water releases chlorine gas into the air in the shower, and it stays in the shower as it can’t get out, so you’re breathing it.

A recent report in the American Journal of Public Health linked chlorine ingestion to cancer stating that up to 2/3rds of the ingestion was due to skin absorption and breathing chlorine gas during showering.

And when this gas escapes into the home, as it must, it contaminates the air in your home.

And there’s more nasty effects to chlorine in your shower water. It dries out and damages your hair. Just think back to what your hair felt like after a swim in a pool. That’s chlorine. And chlorine can dry out the natural oils in your skin and make your skin itchy. Shower filtration is especially useful to anyone with excema.

3. All the above applies to many of the other chemicals and toxins that are found in our water. We have talked about these, nasties like pesticides and herbicides, lead, antibiotics, heavy metals and much much more.

Many of these are volatile and like chlorine will vaporize in the hotter water of the shower, forming a gas. And you breathe that gas. So you’re breathing the very chemicals you’ve filtered from your tap water so you aren’t drinking them.

4. A good shower water filter softens your water, and makes your skin and hair softer and healthier. Hair looks healthier and any colors or tips don’t fade.

The best shower water filters filter out just about any nasties you can imagine, including 99.99% of chlorine. (All of it basically).

And at a surprisingly low cost per annum compared to what you might be paying for health care. Filtering your shower water costs only a couple of dollars a week. There are some more expensive, but if you compare shower water filters you’ll find that you can buy the worlds best shower water filter for under $70.

That’s very inexpensive compared to the pain and cost of a nasty health problem from chlorine ingestion, for example. Read the rest of this entry

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