distilled water and car battery water
Andy Fish
appropriate group),
The instructions on my steam iron tell me to use distilled water but *never
use battery topping up water*. A little internet research tells me that
these two should be one and the same.
Can anybody throw any light on this? Are the steam iron manufacturers just
trying to stop me buying cheaper water, or is there some distinction between
car battery topping up water and steam iron water?
Andy
Jean D Mahavier
news:Ip4Xa.10907$0L6....@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk...
distilled water for both steam iron and our car and motorcycle batteries.
All have
functioned well for years.
Stephen Fels
"Andy Fish" <ajf...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Ip4Xa.10907$0L6....@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk...
It might be that they're distinguishing between distilled and deionized
water. In certain applications, deionized water can be rather corrosive,
because it will tend to re-ionize itself at the expense of various metals.
Since an iron is replenished over and over and a battery is topped off
occasionally, the iron would be more susceptible to corroding internally.
--
Stephen
Home Page: stephmon.com
Satellite Hunting: sathunt.com
Steve Turner
>The instructions on my steam iron tell me to use distilled water but *never
>use battery topping up water*. A little internet research tells me that
>these two should be one and the same.
>
>Can anybody throw any light on this? Are the steam iron manufacturers just
>trying to stop me buying cheaper water, or is there some distinction between
>car battery topping up water and steam iron water?
Andy,
I don't know what "battery topping up water" is. What you want to
avoid is water containing any nonvolatile residues (typically
minerals) which gunk up the inside of the iron over time. Water
purified by distillation or deionization should work fine.
Steve Turner
Real address contains worldnet instead of spamnet
Ron Anderson
--
Ron Anderson
A1 Sewing Machine
PO Box 60
Sand Lake, NY 12153
518-674-8491
http://www.a1sewingmachine.com
"Andy Fish" <ajf...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Ip4Xa.10907$0L6....@news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk...
Repeating Decimal
ajf...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote on 8/3/03 2:16 AM:
The guys on this group are too smart to know what battery "battery topping
up water" is.
Many years ago, when I had an oil change, I instructed the station owner not
to add water to the battery if it would not be distilled water. He told me
that he had been in the auto maintenance business for over 25 years. He knew
of something much better than distilled water.
Because I did not have such experience, he was going to let me in on the
secret. He goes to the tap and fills up his rubber container. He then said
he was going to add a bit of battery acid to finish making his super battery
soup. I told him not to bother. He then lambasted be for being a
nonprofessional unexperienced smartass.
Bill
Joanne
>
>
> The guys on this group are too smart to know what battery "battery topping
> up water" is.
>
> Many years ago, when I had an oil change, I instructed the station owner not
> to add water to the battery if it would not be distilled water. He told me
> that he had been in the auto maintenance business for over 25 years. He knew
> of something much better than distilled water.
>
> Because I did not have such experience, he was going to let me in on the
> secret. He goes to the tap and fills up his rubber container. He then said
> he was going to add a bit of battery acid to finish making his super battery
> soup. I told him not to bother. He then lambasted be for being a
> nonprofessional unexperienced smartass.
>
> Bill
>
Don't you just love those self-proclaimed experts? Years
ago, I had a contractor tell me he couldn't hook up my
well pump because I didn't have 220 service. I told him
to take two 110 lines and join them in the breaker box.
He laughed and said that women don't know anything. He
went off and talked to an electrician, and a few days
later came back and quietly took two 110 lines and ran
power to my pump.
--
Joanne <mailto:stit...@singerlady.reno.nv.us>
http://members.tripod.com/~bernardschopen/
Dave Muzuno
news:lu9Xa.12876$qg3.6...@twister.tampabay.rr.com...
Huh? Both deionized and distilled water have the same quantity of ions in
them, zero. You are correct in saying that deionized water can be more
corrosive, but both deionized and distilled fit that bill.
The only difference between deionized and distilled water is that
deionization doesn't deal with non-ionic impurities (gasoline, alcohol,
etc). Distilling water removes everything except highly volatile stuff, but
even that is removed if the distillation is done correctly.
Dave
David Lloyd-Jones
Ron Anderson wrote:
> If it is a $10.00 steam iron use tap water and toss it when it dies.
Even if it's a ten buck steam iron, two-bits' worth of household
vinegar will give it another lease on life.
-dlj.
Repeating Decimal
joa...@nospam.reno.nv.us wrote on 8/3/03 1:07 PM:
> Don't you just love those self-proclaimed experts? Years
> ago, I had a contractor tell me he couldn't hook up my
> well pump because I didn't have 220 service. I told him
> to take two 110 lines and join them in the breaker box.
> He laughed and said that women don't know anything. He
> went off and talked to an electrician, and a few days
> later came back and quietly took two 110 lines and ran
> power to my pump.
That will not always work. You had what is called a 240 VAC Edison system.
It really is a 240 V system derived from a center tapped transformer. They
are found in homes that use a fairly large amount of power. You cannot
assume that two lines individually measured at 120 volts can be combined to
give 240.
The 220 V or 110 V days are long gone. Just look at any device, a light bulb
for example. The typical one will read 120 volts. Measure the output at a
receptacle. If it reads 110 volts accurately, call your power company,
Bill
Bill Vajk
> If it is a $10.00 steam iron use tap water and toss it when it dies.
A gallon of distilled water is under a dollar at my local
supermarket. Lasts a year in my household. Problems suddenly
unexpectedly manifesting on clothing can cost a lot more.
osmium
> > Don't you just love those self-proclaimed experts? Years
> > ago, I had a contractor tell me he couldn't hook up my
> > well pump because I didn't have 220 service. I told him
> > to take two 110 lines and join them in the breaker box.
> > He laughed and said that women don't know anything. He
> > went off and talked to an electrician, and a few days
> > later came back and quietly took two 110 lines and ran
> > power to my pump.
>
> That will not always work. You had what is called a 240 VAC Edison system.
> It really is a 240 V system derived from a center tapped transformer. They
> are found in homes that use a fairly large amount of power. You cannot
> assume that two lines individually measured at 120 volts can be combined
to
> give 240.
>
> The 220 V or 110 V days are long gone. Just look at any device, a light
bulb
> for example. The typical one will read 120 volts. Measure the output at a
> receptacle. If it reads 110 volts accurately, call your power company,
So what kind of a system is provided for homes that do not use a lot of
power? Do you know of someplace in the US that uses something other than
the system described by the OP for household power? You say the 110/220
days are long gone. What has replaced the old system? Are you quibbling
over a few volts? The 110/115/117/120 gambit? Or what????
Carl Fink
> ... Distilling water removes everything except highly volatile
> stuff, but even that is removed if the distillation is done
> correctly.
Up to a point. No amount of heat distillation can remove all the (for
instance) methanol from water.
--
Carl Fink ca...@fink.to
Jabootu's Minister of Proofreading
http://www.jabootu.com
Mark Brader
"Joanne" wrote:
> > Don't you just love those self-proclaimed experts? Years
> > ago, I had a contractor tell me he couldn't hook up my
> > well pump because I didn't have 220 service. I told him
> > to take two 110 lines and join them in the breaker box.
> > He laughed and said that women don't know anything. He
> > went off and talked to an electrician, and a few days
> > later came back and quietly took two 110 lines and ran
> > power to my pump.
In other words, when he said "you don't have 220 service", he was
wrong. One wonders how he came to that conclusion.
"Bill" writes:
> That will not always work. You had what is called a 240 VAC
> Edison system. It really is a 240 V system derived from a
> center tapped transformer. ...
More commonly called standard 120/240 V service. Of course,
"standard" here means today's standard, and doesn't necessarily
apply in a sufficiently old building; but I think it's been
standard for something like 50 years now.
> You cannot assume that two lines individually measured at
> 120 volts can be combined to give 240.
True. They might have the same phase and give nothing. Or you
might have 3-phase power, where any two of the three 120 V lines
(and your particular residence may have only two of the three)
taken together give 120*sqrt(3) = 208 V.
> The 220 V or 110 V days are long gone. [It's 240 and 120 now.]
True. This makes little practical difference, of course.
Followups directed to alt.fan.cecil-adams.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "Remember that computers are very,
m...@vex.net very fast..." -- Steve Summit
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Steve Turner
>The guys on this group are too smart to know what battery "battery topping
>up water" is.
Bill jogged my memory by this statement. Now I remember:
When I was perhaps 12 years old, I filled a 1 gallon plastic jug with
seawater during a visit to the beach. I had read about all these
marvelous elements that could be found in seawater, and I was eager to
try my hand at isolating some of them.
The plastic jug sat untouched in the garage for, oh, a few months.
Until one day my father needed some distilled water to replenish some
of the cells in the car's battery. He used water from a nearby gallon
plastic jug which bore the label "distilled water." I don't know what
it was that tipped him off, perhaps a bit of sand in the bottom of the
jug, but it came only AFTER he had used the water in the battery.
I don't remember anything else that happened that day.
Buckleys
I assume you mean ethanol, not methanol. However, small amounts of
ethanol can be removed from water by distillation - you just can't
remove small amounts of water from ethanol by simple distillation. For
pure ethanol, you distil an ethanol/water/benzene mixture, which has a
ternary azeotrope.
Rob.
fkasner
David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
If you can stand the stench. There are better weak acids for the purpose
of dissolving lime in a steam iron.
FK
David Lloyd-Jones
fkasner wrote:
> David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>> Ron Anderson wrote:
>>> If it is a $10.00 steam iron use tap water and toss it when it dies.
>
>> Even if it's a ten buck steam iron, two-bits' worth of household
>> vinegar will give it another lease on life.
>>
> If you can stand the stench. There are better weak acids for the purpose
> of dissolving lime in a steam iron.
>
Fred,
I think the operational question is, what do people have around the
house?
The "stench" of vinegar cleaning a kettle of an iron is in fact
minimal -- you have an overactive imagination -- but if it bothers
you, put the iron outside for a copule of hours while the vinegar
eats the crud off. Amazing breakthrough solution: you could probably
have thought of it yourself!
-dlj.
Richard J Kinch
> The only difference between deionized and distilled water is that
> deionization doesn't deal with non-ionic impurities (gasoline, alcohol,
> etc).
Of course the cost and apparatus are quite different, not just the results.
joy beeson
<R...@a1sewingmachine.com> wrote:
> If it is a $10.00 steam iron use tap water and toss it when it dies.
No, put it in the attic, and save it to heat in a skillet
the next time a storm takes out the whole power grid.
(Being snowed in is fun -- but not if you can't sew!)
Joy Beeson
--
http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/ -- needlework
http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ -- Writers' Exchange
joy beeson at earthlink dot net
Charlie
appropriate groups please?
Charlie.
"Buckleys" <the_bu...@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:3F2DBD...@optusnet.com.au...
Sew Like Crazy
"Steve Turner" <srtu...@spamnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:upbrivckqel6cin3k...@4ax.com...
> Repeating Decimal <salm...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> >>( Sniped for time sake)
> The plastic jug sat untouched in the garage for, oh, a few months.
>
> Until one day my father needed some distilled water to replenish some
> of the cells in the car's battery. He used water from a nearby gallon
> plastic jug which bore the label "distilled water." I don't know what
> it was that tipped him off, perhaps a bit of sand in the bottom of the
> jug, but it came only AFTER he had used the water in the battery.
>
> I don't remember anything else that happened that day.
>
> Steve Turner
>
> Real address contains worldnet instead of spamnet
I bet you didn't! I never got yelled at more in my life than when I stuck
my fishing pole "Rod End" down in the salt water! I was cringing when I read
" Until one day my Father" I knew what was coming then! Talk about
oooooooppppps LOL
Kate Dicey
Don't you get kettle and iron descaler in the USA? I'm always seeing
references to cleaning irons with vinegar, and it wouldn't touch what
gets deposited in my iron when the water softener isn't working!
Descaler is widely available here: I have several brands in the cupboard
right now...
--
Kate XXXXXX
Lady Catherine, Wardrobe Mistress of the Chocolate Buttons
http://www.diceyhome.free-online.co.uk
Click on Kate's Pages and explore!
Karen M.
>...
> use battery topping up water*. A little internet research tells me that
> these two should be one and the same.
>
> Can anybody throw any light on this? Are the steam iron manufacturers just
> trying to stop me buying cheaper water, or is there some distinction between
> car battery topping up water and steam iron water?
Sounds like a tech tag written in a language by someone whose
native tongue is not that one.
I use tap water in my iron, no problems.
--Karen M.
Stephen Fels
"Dave Muzuno" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:viqucmn...@corp.supernews.com...
> "Stephen Fels" <ste...@fels.cc> wrote in message
> news:lu9Xa.12876$qg3.6...@twister.tampabay.rr.com...
> > water. In certain applications, deionized water can be rather corrosive,
> > because it will tend to re-ionize itself at the expense of various
metals.
> > Since an iron is replenished over and over and a battery is topped off
> > occasionally, the iron would be more susceptible to corroding
internally.
>
> Huh? Both deionized and distilled water have the same quantity of ions in
> them, zero. You are correct in saying that deionized water can be more
> corrosive, but both deionized and distilled fit that bill.
>
> The only difference between deionized and distilled water is that
> deionization doesn't deal with non-ionic impurities (gasoline, alcohol,
> etc). Distilling water removes everything except highly volatile stuff,
but
> even that is removed if the distillation is done correctly.
Deionized water benefits from the removal of trace amounts of metals that
are bonded to the water molecule, by offering them something they would
rather bond to. For that reason, pricey deionized water is somewhat more
aggressive than the distilled water (you can buy for 99 cents a gallon at
your grocer), when it comes to osmotic erosion.
David Lloyd-Jones
Kate Dicey wrote:
>
> Don't you get kettle and iron descaler in the USA?
Sure. Melitta, the coffee filter people, market one for CDN$3.50 a
small bottle.
White vinegar is $1.47 for four litres.
I'm always seeing
> references to cleaning irons with vinegar, and it wouldn't touch what
> gets deposited in my iron when the water softener isn't working!
> Descaler is widely available here: I have several brands in the cupboard
> right now...
Wassamatter, the first few didn't work?
Vinegar will take out everything that comes through your pipes when
the softener isn't working. You may just need a little patience, is
all. Try overnight: your iron wasn't going anywhere.
-dlj.
fkasner
Oh, I thought of that. It was you who only thought of it after the fact.
And the latter solution doesn't work too well during a northern states
or Canadian winter. And during the summer you have to be sure that the
iron is downwind. Rather difficult when you live near Lake Michigan
where wind shifts are notorious. And I do not tolerate the odor of
dilute acetic acid very well. I did not become an organic chemist
because of considerable harsh reactions to many organic odors. To this
day I can't tolerate even minute amounts of formaldehyde. Drove me
insane in biology lab.
FK
B. Peg
the "distilled water you buy in the grocery store is filtered and/or
deionized - it is not distilled. The cost of heating water to make one
gallon of distilled water, plus the time involved is prohibitive in cost.
Our stills make a little less than 5 gallons in 8-9 hours running 4000
watts/hr. Coupled to them are deionizers with filters. Like I said, it is
a very expensive process. A bottle of true "distilled" water in a store
would probably sell for around $6 gallon. How long would that sit on the
shelf?
Take a tour of your local bottled water company if you'd like to see how
their distilled water is made (filtered). You won't see any huge electrical
or gas lines and steamers running making it. Maybe some neutralizing
chemicals added too. On one tour I found that bottled drinking water has a
shelf life of two years. Chemicals leech from the plastic or bacteria
bloom. Some have expiration dates on them.
Oh, beer from the stream in Colorado or Washington (the Rocky Mountain one),
anyone believe that? -- or that bottled water from France?
Just avoid hard water in your iron to keep it from scaling up and you'll be
okay.
B~
Dave Muzuno
in
> > them, zero. You are correct in saying that deionized water can be more
> > corrosive, but both deionized and distilled fit that bill.
> >
> > The only difference between deionized and distilled water is that
> > deionization doesn't deal with non-ionic impurities (gasoline, alcohol,
> > etc). Distilling water removes everything except highly volatile stuff,
> but
> > even that is removed if the distillation is done correctly.
>
> Deionized water benefits from the removal of trace amounts of metals that
> are bonded to the water molecule, by offering them something they would
> rather bond to. For that reason, pricey deionized water is somewhat more
> aggressive than the distilled water (you can buy for 99 cents a gallon at
> your grocer), when it comes to osmotic erosion.
That makes no sense. If you had said it the other way around I may have
bought you explanation.
Deionized water is deionized by (usually) passing the water through both
cationic and anionic exchangers. Reverse osmosis is another way. All the +
ions are exchanged with H+ and all the - ions are exchanged with -OH. H+
and -OH react to give water. Hence no remaining ions.
I could possibly see a highly complexed metal making it through the
exchangers untouched, due to some freaky lack of affinity for the exchange
resin. Therefore, deionized water could possibly contain trace metals. It
would most definitively contain organics, as most of them would pass
untouched.
Distilled water is formed by collecting water in the vapor phase. I don't
know of any metal-water complexes (AKA your "metals that are bonded to the
water molecule") that are volatile enough to make it through the
liquid-vapor-liquid system. There are metallic species that are volatile
(nickel hexacarbonyl) but I don't think those would survive the
distillation. I could be wrong however.
So in conclusion, I would consider distilled water much more agressive as it
would be a lot purer than deionized water. There are exceptions.
Dave
Bill P
Hi folks!
Heed the above, she speaks the truth and fact!. Practically NOTHING
advertised today is what it is claimed to be, such as "distilled" water as
metioned above. About the best a person can do inexpensively today is
"R.O.", or product from a reverse osmosis machine, [ I refer to the $150 or
so under the sink variety RO Machine] and this only removes about 90% or so
of the hardness molecules, bacteria, iron, and sulfur particles as well as
many other impurities. Because it works on a molecular level, RO membranes
do fairly well, but certainly does NOT remove EVERYTHING, including some
hydrocarbons that carry over in the distillation process. I know, I know...
some parts of the country have absolutely wonderful water and don't suffer
the problems those of us in the southwest do... where one nearly has to chew
the water like ice as it's so hard.
Nevertheless, vinegar is a good, cheap scale remover for the price, but I
still stand on the CLR for those really tough jobs... cut it 50% and let it
stand for a day or two! Rinse a couple of times and it's very clean
again....
Bill in Phx, Az
SNUMBER6
>A bottle of true "distilled" water in a store
>would probably sell for around $6 gallon.
http://www.waterdistillers-polarbear.com/prodcosts.html
Read and say "oops" ...
Be seeing you
In the Village
Number 6
Aaron Hicks
>Since I make distilled H2O at work (chemical industry) I can assure you
>that the "distilled water you buy in the grocery store is filtered and/or
>deionized - it is not distilled.
Not to quibble or anything, but when I buy distilled water at the
store, the label says "steam distilled." Perhaps your area is different.
>The cost of heating water to make one gallon of distilled water, plus the
>time involved is prohibitive in cost. Our stills make a little less than
>5 gallons in 8-9 hours running 4000 watts/hr. Coupled to them are
>deionizers with filters. Like I said, it is a very expensive process. A
>bottle of true "distilled" water in a store would probably sell for
>around $6 gallon. How long would that sit on the shelf?
Again, not to quibble, but having squeezed more than a couple of
gallons out of a Barnstead in my own tenure as a chemist, I would offer
the following (someone check my math):
Heat of vaporization for water: 540 cal/gram
Grams of water per gallon: 3,785.4 (approx.)
540 cal/gram * 3,785.4 grams water/gallon = 2,044,116 calories/gallon
A million calories = 1.163 kilowatt hours, according to
www.onlineconversion.com. So:
(2,044,116 calories/gallon) / 1.163 ^ 10-6 calories/kWh = 2.377 kWh
Locally, electricity runs about 8.3 cents/kWh, so call it a
generous 10 cents per kHw. That would say that at 100% efficiency, a still
would run you about $.24 per gallon.
Of course, stills aren't 100% efficient, but I'm going to go out
on a limb and say that the $.79 I pay for a gallon of steam distilled
water at the store isn't the result of some sort of market dumping.
Further, having a glassblower friend who actually makes stills, he
commented that a 1 kilowatt still makes a gallon of distilled water in
about 2-1/2 hours, or about 2.5 kWh- pretty close to the 2.377 kWh as
calculated above. With these figures in mind, I set up a solar still in my
backyard; I figured that it started paying for itself after about 400
days. Pretty good for a still with an expected lifetime of over 5 years.
Any errors in my math have been installed by tiny gremlins in my
keyboard. With this in mind, someone tell me where I'm wrong.
E-mail address to the header won't work. Sorry.
-AJHicks
Chandler, AZ
Bill Vajk
> Since I make distilled H2O at work (chemical industry) I can assure you that
> the "distilled water you buy in the grocery store is filtered and/or
> deionized - it is not distilled. The cost of heating water to make one
> gallon of distilled water, plus the time involved is prohibitive in cost.
> Our stills make a little less than 5 gallons in 8-9 hours running 4000
> watts/hr.
Your equipment is terribly antiquated, obsolete, and inefficient. Why
on earth wouldn't your firm just buy distilled water which is a lot
cheaper than your production costs?
> Coupled to them are deionizers with filters. Like I said, it is
> a very expensive process. A bottle of true "distilled" water in a store
> would probably sell for around $6 gallon. How long would that sit on the
> shelf?
If we lived in 1910 perhaps, but we don't.
There's currently a discussion in sci.physics about this
subject relating to ocean water. Check these sources.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/ns-hms070903.php
http://www.rpi.edu/dept/chem-eng/Biotech-Environ/Environmental/desal/flash.html
http://www.usace.army.mil/publications/armytm/tm5-813-8/c-6.pdf
JJ
about distilled water in my car battery or my steam iron for that matter.
How about moving it out of the sewing group. My sewing machine runs on
electricity and my car battery visits the dealer with great frequency.
Thanks
JJ
"Bill Vajk" <bill9...@hotmailDITCHTHIS.com> wrote in message
news:3F2ECD47...@hotmailDITCHTHIS.com...
GCW
Muzuno" <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> Deionized water is deionized by (usually) passing the water through both
> cationic and anionic exchangers. Reverse osmosis is another way. All the +
> ions are exchanged with H+ and all the - ions are exchanged with -OH. H+
> and -OH react to give water. Hence no remaining ions.
>
> I could possibly see a highly complexed metal making it through the
> exchangers untouched, due to some freaky lack of affinity for the exchange
> resin. Therefore, deionized water could possibly contain trace metals. It
> would most definitively contain organics, as most of them would pass
> untouched.
>
> Distilled water is formed by collecting water in the vapor phase. I don't
> know of any metal-water complexes (AKA your "metals that are bonded to the
> water molecule") that are volatile enough to make it through the
> liquid-vapor-liquid system. There are metallic species that are volatile
> (nickel hexacarbonyl) but I don't think those would survive the
> distillation. I could be wrong however.
Well, now I know more about distilled and deionized water than I'll ever
remember!
--
GCW
The more I learn, the more I know. The more I know, the more I forget. The
more I forget, the less I know. The less I know, the more I need to learn.
And so it goes...
Repeating Decimal
wrote on 8/4/03 2:15 PM:
> Again, not to quibble, but having squeezed more than a couple of
> gallons out of a Barnstead in my own tenure as a chemist, I would offer
> the following (someone check my math):
>
> Heat of vaporization for water: 540 cal/gram
> Grams of water per gallon: 3,785.4 (approx.)
>
> 540 cal/gram * 3,785.4 grams water/gallon = 2,044,116 calories/gallon
>
> A million calories = 1.163 kilowatt hours, according to
> www.onlineconversion.com. So:
>
> (2,044,116 calories/gallon) / 1.163 ^ 10-6 calories/kWh = 2.377 kWh
>
> Locally, electricity runs about 8.3 cents/kWh, so call it a
> generous 10 cents per kHw. That would say that at 100% efficiency, a still
> would run you about $.24 per gallon.
>
> Of course, stills aren't 100% efficient, but I'm going to go out
> on a limb and say that the $.79 I pay for a gallon of steam distilled
> water at the store isn't the result of some sort of market dumping.
>
> Further, having a glassblower friend who actually makes stills, he
> commented that a 1 kilowatt still makes a gallon of distilled water in
> about 2-1/2 hours, or about 2.5 kWh- pretty close to the 2.377 kWh as
> calculated above. With these figures in mind, I set up a solar still in my
> backyard; I figured that it started paying for itself after about 400
> days. Pretty good for a still with an expected lifetime of over 5 years.
>
> Any errors in my math have been installed by tiny gremlins in my
> keyboard. With this in mind, someone tell me where I'm wrong.
>
With a bit more quibble, note that the steam would be condensed by heating
feed water. With really good heat exchange, you should be able to get many
more gallons of distilled water for every gallon made by heating and
nonregenerative condensation.
Bill
danny burstein
>chemicals added too. On one tour I found that bottled drinking water has a
>shelf life of two years. Chemicals leech from the plastic or bacteria
>bloom. Some have expiration dates on them.
Expiration dates on water containers have even less validity than the ones
on drug packages.
short version of very long story:
the contents (drugs or water or whatever) are tested
after umptity months and years. The manufacturer
sees that they still meet specs at some number
of months or years, and chooses to publicise that figure.
NOTE that they may, and almost always, still meet those
specs many months/years after the date they choose to list.
In the vast majority of cases the number they choose is
a marketing, not a regulatory or safety, decision.
In fact, given the expense of doing tests to qualify
for further FDA certification, the company may only do
the Big Official Tests at the two year (or, to be safe,
the two and a half year) mark and do a simpler and cheaper
(but every bit as valid) series at three, four, and five
which they keep for in-house info.
The US Air Force, in conjunction with the FDA, recently began testing
drugs to see how much longer they were effective after the expiration
dates. Answer: the vast majority lasted a whole lot longer.
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Steve Turner
>The US Air Force, in conjunction with the FDA, recently began testing
>drugs to see how much longer they were effective after the expiration
>dates. Answer: the vast majority lasted a whole lot longer.
Right you are. It is obviously in the best interest of the pharma
industry to have people buy new lots of drugs more often.
BUT - there is a caveat here. Drug companies have no control over how
drugs are stored. Stick your prescription med up on the dashboard of
your car in Arizona for a few months and it'll almost certainly go to
pot long before the expiration date. In this light, it probably makes
logical sense to have a fair bit of cushion in expiration dates.
danny burstein
>Right you are. It is obviously in the best interest of the pharma
>industry to have people buy new lots of drugs more often.
>BUT - there is a caveat here. Drug companies have no control over how
>drugs are stored. Stick your prescription med up on the dashboard of
>your car in Arizona for a few months and it'll almost certainly go to
>pot long before the expiration date. In this light, it probably makes
>logical sense to have a fair bit of cushion in expiration dates.
exactly, but within reason. So... if you're in arizona or florida take
those dates a bit mor seriously than if you're in siberia.
In short, for the vast majority of (consumer level) drugs, if you're
comfortable they're comfortable.
Carl Fink
> Vinegar will take out everything that comes through your pipes when
> the softener isn't working. You may just need a little patience, is
> all. Try overnight: your iron wasn't going anywhere.
Exposure to vinegar also corrodes most metals. You want to be
careful about exposure times.
Carl Fink
> ... Reverse osmosis is another way. All the + ions are exchanged
> with H+ and all the - ions are exchanged with -OH. H+ and -OH
> react to give water. Hence no remaining ions.
In reverse osmosis, the water passes through a nonporous membrane,
leaving behind some percentage of ions (and other non-H2O molecules).
There's no ion exchange involved in RO.
(I've had arguments with people about the porosity of the membranes,
but leading authorities say they're nonporous.)
Mary Shafer
wrote:
> In article <vithmk8...@corp.supernews.com>, Dave Muzuno wrote:
>
> > ... Reverse osmosis is another way. All the + ions are exchanged
> > with H+ and all the - ions are exchanged with -OH. H+ and -OH
> > react to give water. Hence no remaining ions.
>
> In reverse osmosis, the water passes through a nonporous membrane,
> leaving behind some percentage of ions (and other non-H2O molecules).
> There's no ion exchange involved in RO.
No, there isn't, but most water filters with RO also have ion exchange
cartridges. For an example, mine has a filter that stops fairly
coarse material, two ion exchange stages, and the RO stage.
This may have led people to formulate an explanation of RO that
involves ion exchange.
> (I've had arguments with people about the porosity of the membranes,
> but leading authorities say they're nonporous.)
They may or may not be nonporous, but they're certainly not
impermeable. Many people regard "porous" and "permeable" as being
approximately synonymous.
Mary
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
mil...@qnet.com
David Lloyd-Jones
Carl Fink wrote:
> In article <3F2E8D9E...@rogers.com>, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>
>
>>Vinegar will take out everything that comes through your pipes when
>>the softener isn't working. You may just need a little patience, is
>>all. Try overnight: your iron wasn't going anywhere.
>
>
> Exposure to vinegar also corrodes most metals. You want to be
> careful about exposure times.
Carl,
The subject was a ten dollar iron -- nicely protected by a layerof
lime and crud. :-)
-dlj.
SNUMBER6
>No, there isn't, but most water filters with RO also have ion exchange
>cartridges. For an example, mine has a filter that stops fairly
>coarse material, two ion exchange stages, and the RO stage.
>This may have led people to formulate an explanation of RO that
>involves ion exchange.
>
RO is ions stay where they are supposed to ...
Carl Fink
In article <jk3uivshv37v47d9l...@4ax.com>, Mary Shafer wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Aug 2003 01:26:24 +0000 (UTC), Carl Fink <ca...@panix.com>
> wrote:
>> In reverse osmosis, the water passes through a nonporous membrane,
>> leaving behind some percentage of ions (and other non-H2O molecules).
>> There's no ion exchange involved in RO.
>
> No, there isn't, but most water filters with RO also have ion exchange
> cartridges. For an example, mine has a filter that stops fairly
> coarse material, two ion exchange stages, and the RO stage.
What, no carbon cartridge? I've never seen an RO system without an
activated carbon element. OTOH, my sister's under-sink unit has two
spun particulate filters, the carbon element, and RO with no ion
exchange.
A
other things in the USA.
It's been very informative reading all this about water.
John
"danny burstein" <dan...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:bgn034$3fv$1...@reader1.panix.com...
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Joanne
> in article 3f2d6be4$1...@news.greatbasin.net, Joanne at
> joa...@nospam.reno.nv.us wrote on 8/3/03 1:07 PM:
>
>
>>Don't you just love those self-proclaimed experts? Years
>>ago, I had a contractor tell me he couldn't hook up my
>>well pump because I didn't have 220 service. I told him
>>to take two 110 lines and join them in the breaker box.
>>He laughed and said that women don't know anything. He
>>went off and talked to an electrician, and a few days
>>later came back and quietly took two 110 lines and ran
>>power to my pump.
>
>
> That will not always work. You had what is called a 240 VAC Edison system.
> It really is a 240 V system derived from a center tapped transformer. They
> are found in homes that use a fairly large amount of power. You cannot
> assume that two lines individually measured at 120 volts can be combined to
> give 240.
>
> The 220 V or 110 V days are long gone. Just look at any device, a light bulb
> for example. The typical one will read 120 volts. Measure the output at a
> receptacle. If it reads 110 volts accurately, call your power company,
>
> Bill
>
This was 30 years ago, Bill.
--
Joanne <mailto:stit...@singerlady.reno.nv.us>
http://members.tripod.com/~bernardschopen/
Joanne
> On Sun, 3 Aug 2003 12:29:16 -0400, "Ron Anderson"
> <R...@a1sewingmachine.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>If it is a $10.00 steam iron use tap water and toss it when it dies.
>
>
> No, put it in the attic, and save it to heat in a skillet
> the next time a storm takes out the whole power grid.
> (Being snowed in is fun -- but not if you can't sew!)
>
> Joy Beeson
Good reason to collect a treadle or a handcrank sewing
machine - or both! *bringing topic back to sewing*
Roland Paterson-Jones
Roland
--
Roland and Lisa Paterson-Jones
Forest Lodge, Stirrup Lane, Hout Bay
http://www.rolandpj.com/forest-lodge
mobile: +27 72 386 8045
e-mail: forest...@rolandpj.com
"Joanne" <joa...@nospam.reno.nv.us> wrote in message
news:3f2e2...@news.greatbasin.net...
David T. Croft
"Hactar" <ebe...@tampabay.ARE-ARE.com.unmunge> wrote in message
news:bgonsu$53u$1...@pc.tampabay.rr.com...
> In article <0murivkcavg3j82nc...@4ax.com>,
> joy beeson <xbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
> > On Sun, 3 Aug 2003 12:29:16 -0400, "Ron Anderson"
> > <R...@a1sewingmachine.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > If it is a $10.00 steam iron use tap water and toss it when it dies.
> >
> > No, put it in the attic, and save it to heat in a skillet
> > the next time a storm takes out the whole power grid.
>
> Boggled me, with an electric stove, for a sec.
>
> > (Being snowed in is fun -- but not if you can't sew!)
>
> I saw snow around Las Vegas... haven't seen it here for a quarter century.
>
> --
> -eben ebQ...@EtaRmpTabYayU.rIr.OcoPm home.tampabay.rr.com/hactar
> CANCER: The position of Jupiter says that you should spend the
> rest of the week face down in the mud. Try not to shove a roll of
> duct tape up your nose when taking your driver's test. -- Weird Al
Dave Muzuno
"Carl Fink" <ca...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:slrnbiu1u0...@panix2.panix.com...
> In article <vithmk8...@corp.supernews.com>, Dave Muzuno wrote:
>
> > ... Reverse osmosis is another way. All the + ions are exchanged
> > with H+ and all the - ions are exchanged with -OH. H+ and -OH
> > react to give water. Hence no remaining ions.
>
> In reverse osmosis, the water passes through a nonporous membrane,
> leaving behind some percentage of ions (and other non-H2O molecules).
> There's no ion exchange involved in RO.
>
> (I've had arguments with people about the porosity of the membranes,
> but leading authorities say they're nonporous.)
After re-reading my post, I am guilty of poor placement of that sentence
"Reverse osmosis is another way". I added that while re-reading the post,
not noticing the implication that it uses ion exchange. Of course osmosis
doesn't use ion exchange!
Dave
Repeating Decimal
joa...@nospam.reno.nv.us wrote on 8/3/03 8:02 PM:
>> The 220 V or 110 V days are long gone. Just look at any device, a light bulb
>> for example. The typical one will read 120 volts. Measure the output at a
>> receptacle. If it reads 110 volts accurately, call your power company,
>>
>> Bill
>>
> This was 30 years ago, Bill.
It was 120 volts long ago. Even when I had electrical shop in JHS it was 120
V. My shop teacher called it 110. I sometimes think that all electricians
had him as a teacher.
At the time, I think that we were running our wiring setups at line voltage
with an incandescent lamp limiting the current. I can just picture the law
suits if that went on today/
Bill
Repeating Decimal
rol...@rolandpj.com wrote on 8/5/03 9:57 AM:
> Hey, it looks like sci.chem has discovered a second gender ;)
There is a second gender?
Bill
Ron
> Hi all (Please excuse the crossposts but I couldnt' really find an
> appropriate group),
>
> The instructions on my steam iron tell me to use distilled water but
> *never use battery topping up water*. A little internet research
> tells me that these two should be one and the same.
>
> Can anybody throw any light on this? Are the steam iron manufacturers
> just trying to stop me buying cheaper water, or is there some
> distinction between car battery topping up water and steam iron water?
>
> Andy
Way, way, back in the 60's "Battery topping up liquid" was sometimes a *very
dilute* solution of sulphuric acid (in the UK - I remember buying some). I
think it was added to prolong the life of the liquid (stop algae growing).
A tiny extra drop of acid in a battery has no effect, in a steam iron
however....
--
Ron Jones
Don't repeat history, see unreported near misses in chemical lab/plant
at http://www.crhf.org.uk
Luke Ross
Ron wrote:
>
> Way, way, back in the 60's "Battery topping up liquid" was sometimes a *very
> dilute* solution of sulphuric acid (in the UK - I remember buying some). I
> think it was added to prolong the life of the liquid (stop algae growing).
> A tiny extra drop of acid in a battery has no effect, in a steam iron
> however....
>
I was under the impression that the acid in lead-acid batteries is
sulphuric acid, so the acid in the topping up liquid actually helps the
battery more than just distilled water would.
See http://science.howstuffworks.com/battery3.htm
Regards,
Luke
Repeating Decimal
luke...@sys3175.co.uk wrote on 8/6/03 1:50 AM:
> I was under the impression that the acid in lead-acid batteries is
> sulphuric acid, so the acid in the topping up liquid actually helps the
> battery more than just distilled water would.
The details of secondary lead acid batteries can be rather complicated. I
would think that excess sulfuric acid would make it more likely that the
plates will be sulfated and consequently ruined. That is, you would want to
limit the amount of sulfuric acid present in order to stop discharge.
Bikll
William David Thweatt
: Hi all (Please excuse the crossposts but I couldnt' really find an
: appropriate group),
: The instructions on my steam iron tell me to use distilled water but *never
: use battery topping up water*. A little internet research tells me that
: these two should be one and the same.
: Can anybody throw any light on this? Are the steam iron manufacturers just
: trying to stop me buying cheaper water, or is there some distinction between
: car battery topping up water and steam iron water?
I've used tap water in my iron for eight years now. The iron only cost me
$19.95 at Wal-Mart. I've probably put about one hundred gallons of water
through it since then. At a rate of $1.98 per gallon for distilled water
at the grocery store, and a rate of $0.00 per gallon from my tap (water
paid apartment), I figure I've saved nearly $180.00 with tap water. I
suppose I should subtract the $5.00 or so I've spent on SOS pads cleaning
my iron, but I still come out WAY ahead.
My advice would be not to iron your car battery.
--
--
William "Dave" Thweatt
Robert E. Welsh Postdoctoral Fellow
Chemistry Department
Rice University
Houston, TX
thw...@ruf.rice.edu
dave.t...@us.army.mil
ctc...@hotmail.com
> "B. Peg" <bent*pegs69noospam*@att.net> spaketh thusly:
>
> >Since I make distilled H2O at work (chemical industry) I can assure you
> >that the "distilled water you buy in the grocery store is filtered
> >and/or deionized - it is not distilled.
>
> store, the label says "steam distilled." Perhaps your area is different.
>
> >The cost of heating water to make one gallon of distilled water, plus
> >the time involved is prohibitive in cost. Our stills make a little less
> >deionizers with filters. Like I said, it is a very expensive process.
> >A bottle of true "distilled" water in a store would probably sell for
> >around $6 gallon. How long would that sit on the shelf?
>
> gallons out of a Barnstead in my own tenure as a chemist, I would offer
> the following (someone check my math):
>
> Heat of vaporization for water: 540 cal/gram
> Grams of water per gallon: 3,785.4 (approx.)
>
> 540 cal/gram * 3,785.4 grams water/gallon = 2,044,116 calories/gallon
Throw in the 80-90 cal/gram to bring it up to the boiling point.
>
> A million calories = 1.163 kilowatt hours, according to
> www.onlineconversion.com. So:
>
> (2,044,116 calories/gallon) / 1.163 ^ 10-6 calories/kWh = 2.377 kWh
>
> Locally, electricity runs about 8.3 cents/kWh, so call it a
> generous 10 cents per kHw. That would say that at 100% efficiency, a
> still would run you about $.24 per gallon.
>
> Of course, stills aren't 100% efficient,
By your standards, large-scale industrial stills are probably >100%
efficient. They could use a heat exchanger to recapture the heat from the
vapor being condensed. And using electricity (a low entropy form of
energy) to boil water on large scale is a mockery of the laws of
thermodynamics. Using a direct fossil fuel would probably be 3 times
cheaper, or so.
Xho
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> Since I make distilled H2O at work (chemical industry) I can assure you
> that the "distilled water you buy in the grocery store is filtered and/or
> gallon of distilled water, plus the time involved is prohibitive in cost.
> Our stills make a little less than 5 gallons in 8-9 hours running 4000
> watts/hr.
It's accelerating?
Xho
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