THE MYTHS OF MINERAL WATER - AND ITS CONTAMINATION OF WATER SOURCES
nlok...@gmail.com
I am an Electronic and Instrument engineer and had been with the SWCC
of the Government of Saudi Arabia at their biggest Desalination plant
at Al Jubail. This is a huge plant with 13 power plants and 46
desalination plants. All of the Desalination plants were of the Multi
Flash Point type (MPF). I was the engineer in charge of all the
plant's Desalination Instrument (overhaul ) maintenance for 3 years.
In desalination two types are used one is the MPF and the other is the
RO (Reverse Osmosis) plant. I do not want to go into the
technicalities of desalination and confuse. What I would like to point
out is the problems of RO plants from which all the financially
comfortable people, travelers, tourists get their drinking water.
In MFP the sea water or whatever water to be desalinated is first
filtered, treated and then heated in brine heaters and then allowed to
condense in successive high vacuum chambers which are kept in lowest
to highest vacuum, since at vacuum water boils and condenses fast .
The condensate is collected as potable water and mixed / blended with
well water lime etc to induce some taste before delivery.
The reverse osmosis plants are used invariably by all the Mineral
water bottlers. (It is no mineral water; actually most of the minerals
are removed)
In the RO case good river water, underground water, brackish water or
sea water is taken out and sent through micro filters (membrane
filters- cellulose acetate or polyomide) which remove the TDS or total
dissolve salts to a level to which it is possible for man to drink or
potable. In this process not only the undesired salts are removed but
also usable and good salts are removed and you get a peculiar taste
compared to fresh water. Not only this, then the water has to be
disinfected either by chlorination or by UV or ozonisation. But
whether this is done or not nobody knows.The handling and
transportation also has its own way of getting infected.
Also as water is a precious commodity the wasting of the water is
highly deplorable. In desalination around 60% of water is wasted and
fed into the very source from which it is taken. The percentage of
wastage depends on the quality of water encountered . It also
contaminates the source since it is concentrated brine (more salts/
volume). Especially if sea water is treated the wasted brine contains
both high concentrated salts and chemicals used in the process which
could kill the sea borne lives when discharged into the sea. Even in
RO process chemicals are added for process sake. When the
concentrated brine is left out, it kills all the trees and plants and
even organisms and worms present in the soil and no fresh trees or
plants will grow because of the grounds high salinity.
Since lots of money is involved many of small scales RO plants are
coming up everywhere in India and all over the world. The small plants
waste more water than the bigger plants because of their lower
efficiency.
I once asked the Japanese engineer for IHI whether the brine could be
used to make salts for human consumption. He said that since quite a
few chemicals are used for the purpose of process instrumentation
purposes before desaliniation, it cannot be used for salt making or
even for using as fertilizer feed.
So the desalination wastes more water than it gives out for drinking
purposes, endangering the meagre water sources for states like
Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh in India and in many other
countries. etc. It is also doing an incalculable mistake of making
the people addicted to the taste of the so called mineral mineral
water who will not relish the fresh water after some time.
The best water is the water you get from the City / Municipal Water
Supplies, boil it, filter it and use it. It is safe and sound. It is
healthy and cheap. Atleast somebody responsible will be there to
answer your problems.