2.3 Distillation and reverse osmosis (Water for coffee)
Description
This article is from the Water for coffee FAQ, by Jim Schulman with numerous contributions by others.
2.3 Distillation and reverse osmosis (Water for coffee)
Distillation removes all water impurities, good or bad.
Nowadays, one can buy 1 liter per hour countertop distrillers, but
otherwise the much more efficient reverse osmosis process is used. In
reverse osmosis, some water is forced through a membrane impermiable
to minerals which are washed away by the proportion of water not
passing the membrane. RO should produce virtually pure water (below 1
mg/l total solids); however, mineral removal is compromised when the
amount of waste water is reduced. For instance, supermarket RO
vendomats in very hard water areas may put out as much as 50 mg/l
hardness and alkalinity levels. Home reverse osmosis systems are
generally self-cleaning, but need to be installed and set up by
specialists. They are more expensive to buy and operate than ion
exchange softeners (see below).
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