Safety of drinking water

[Cassis]

I think Deimos is thinking of Erith Water, drawn from a Thames water leak near the Sidcup Bypass.

[Jonzjob]

[quote user="powerdesal"]JonD, we certainly do. Desalinated water is distilled water and tastes awful, technically it will also kill you because, if there were no minerals / salts in it you would leach out your body salts over time and then you go toes up [:(]

Our latest 'potabilisation' plant involves dissolving CO2 in a proportion of the distillate to (effectively) make a weak carbonic acid ( or at least a low ph water) this then goes into/through vessels containing limestone which dissolves. The treated stream is then mixed with the balance of the untreated distillate. All the process is obviously closely controlled and we work to WHO specifications for potable water in all aspects. We also dose with hypochlorite to disinfect. Traditionally the sodium hypochlorite was electrolytically derived from sea water but modern thinking says that that method leaves bromate in the water which is carcinogenic. We now have to use a pure salt solution to stop the bromate.

We refer to the fact that we have to 'pollute' the pure product to make it palatable.

I am not a chemical engineer and I am sure there must be chemists / ex-chemists on this forum who can explain better. Suffice to say that all our water is passed by our station chemist  [+o(]
[/quote]

Crikey! We just turn on the swan neck tap and filtered water comes out, but it don't start with the sea water in it.

Not only that, but it would be useless trying to boil water as I used to at R.A.F. Lyneham in my bunk. I used a plastic mug (metal mugs don't work!) and 2 spoons connected to the mains, one on each side of the mug. The water boiled quite quickly, but you have to use the spoons a few times to get rid of the chrome. Made a lovely cup of tea and there's nowt wrong with meeeeeeeeeeeee now. Your water, before you put the muck back in it would be a perfect insulator!! So the water would not boil. One thing to remember was to switch the mains of and remove the spoons befoer you drink the tea or it tasted 'SHOCKING' (sorry, but you must have known that was coming?)

Shajah used to be a 1 year unaccompanied posting when I was in the R.A.F. I was glad I didn't finish up there, because the only thing you could do was play with the Trucial Ohman Scouts and they played seriously... My old man did spend 3 years in Bahrein though.. Bin there.

Cas you were wondering about my recycling habits, what about the water in Shajah? He must have an enormouse bladddder?

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="powerdesal"]JonD, we certainly do. Desalinated water is

distilled water and tastes awful, technically it will also kill you

because, if there were no minerals / salts in it you would leach out

your body salts over time and then you go toes up [:(]

Our

latest 'potabilisation' plant involves dissolving CO2 in a proportion

of the distillate to (effectively) make a weak carbonic acid ( or at

least a low ph water) this then goes into/through vessels containing

limestone which dissolves. The treated stream is then mixed with the

balance of the untreated distillate. All the process is obviously

closely controlled and we work to WHO specifications for potable water

in all aspects. We also dose with hypochlorite to disinfect.

Traditionally the sodium hypochlorite was electrolytically derived from

sea water but modern thinking says that that method leaves bromate in

the water which is carcinogenic. We now have to use a pure salt

solution to stop the bromate.

We refer to the fact that we have to 'pollute' the pure product to make it palatable.

I

am not a chemical engineer and I am sure there must be chemists /

ex-chemists on this forum who can explain better. Suffice to say that

all our water is passed by our station chemist  [+o(]

[/quote]

Thanks for this - I'm pleased my Maltese friend was at least heading in

the right direction. They made a beer (called Cisk, I think) from the

water from the de-sal plant that always smelt faintly of farts. I

rather hope that if he has managed to improve anything it is that...