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How do we choose the potable water? We try its taste, and verify its color and transparency. But sometimes we’d rather didn’t trust our own eyes. Nowadays we frequently observe a pseudo-scientific fraud, when after the shown water electrolysis (two plates are inserted into the vessel and the current is run through them) the brownish "hazardous" sediment is created.
But if physics or chemistry is not your occupation, you must remember from school only separated data about the way, how one can check the water contamination with "hazardous" salts and chemical elements by means of electrolysis.
Nowadays some companies unfairly use the method of chemical analysis of potable water by means of electrolysis as a visual and convincing means of showing the liquid composition for promotion of sales of water purifying facilities of purified potable water.
However, this means is not only uncompetitive; it is also incorrect. The demonstrator shows to the fascinated customer what changes happen to the water after it is subjected to the current, assuring him that all visual changes result from the water contamination. And here everything depends, so to say, on the demonstrator’s educational level. Some of them say that you see the sedimentation of heavy metal salts; others call it radiation or even pesticides and herbicides. In fact, the current passing through the water dissolves the very electrode immersed into the water.
and most of the consumers do not remember, that according to Faradey laws (1834), "the weight of substances excreted on the electrode, is in direct proportion to the amount of electricity, passing through the electrolyte".
Therefore, coloring of water, which the demonstrators explain as sedimentation of hazardous salts, is caused by dissolution of iron electrode. And intensity depends on the following factors: overall water mineralization and electrolysis duration. It means the more dissolved salts are in the water, the worse the water studied by the device looks. Moreover, as was learnt in experiments, the peculiar brownish sediment is created in the water even if the liquid contains non-toxic salts in the amounts, absolutely non-hazardous for human health according to the Ukrainian standards (State sanitary rules and regulations "Potable Water. Hygienic requirements to the quality of water from centralized household and potable water supply", approved by Order of the Health Ministry of Ukraine dated December 23, 1996 No. 383) and by the WHO. And, contrarily, special studies proved that if we dissolve a deathly dose of truly heavy metal, such as Cadmium or Mercury, in the desalted water (e.g., obtained by means of reverse osmosis), this device will not show any changes in the studied water. Besides, the very manufacturer calls this device a mineralization meter, and not the water quality identifier. In fact, this device visually shows water saturation with salts, but cannot divide water into good and bad.
Such pseudo-scientific methods are just a means of frightening and misleading credulous customers.
For any water is a solution of salts, therefore even in pure spring water (for experiment one take the most renowned brands of potable water) the sediment will appear after passing of current through the electrodes. Only distilled and reverse osmosis water will remain transparent, for it has absolutely now value for human body. For the person understanding the essence of the processes taking place upon water hydrolysis demonstration the contrary conclusion is obvious: if there is no sediment, it means that water is not potable, but rather a process one, designed for an accumulator or iron. Certainly, it is not hazardous, but it is not useful either. The consumers must understand that water is not just a means for cooking; it is a source of all-important elements, required for regular functioning of the human body. |
