Why Purifying Water? The Importance Of Water Purification

Why Purifying Water The Importance Of Water Purification

There are several ways to purify water, from old to up-to-date technology. Studies, tests, and experiments have helped us have clean water.      

But how does water get cleaned? What kind of process does it have to go through before it’s purified? How many stages does it have to pass before it’s safe for us to use it? Before answering those questions, let’s answer this simple yet complex question: what is water?  

Water is a very important component of our lives and the earth. 70% of our body is composed of water. According to The USGS Water Science School, 71% of the earth is water. We have different bodies of water, from oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, etc. Researchers even say that if global warming continues, the glaciers in the Arctic will melt, and water will envelop all the land areas.     

The earth will be surrounded by water. Thus, everyone and everything will be obliterated. Let’s not forget catastrophes caused by water. When heavy rain is combined with another elemental cataclysm, it becomes a super typhoon, tidal wave, tsunami, you name it. As tragic as they may sound, these are all-natural disasters.

Why do we use water in our everyday lives? In some of Maslow’s interpretations of the hierarchy of needs, water may not be put under the physiological stage, but it is under that first stage. Let’s go to the basics – we use water for drinking, preparing food, cooking, bathing, and washing our clothes and things. Water has been and will always be an important component of our lives.  

Why Purifying Water The Importance Of Water Purification

As of 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported 842,000 deaths per year from waterborne diseases based on their www. who.int website. It’s just sad that these deaths can be prevented by having portable, clean, safe water. Especially in remote areas, where sanitation is a big concern, water is unsafe for drinking and unhygienic. This affects middle-aged residents, children, and everyone in the community. 

The main objective is to produce safe and clean drinking water for everyone. Water has many chemical particles, ions, algae, bacteria causing parasites, and nutrients; some say it includes minerals and many more. So, different water purification methods were established depending on the purpose of water consumption. 

According to Wikipedia.org, the methods are categorized according to their processes. For physical processes, we have infiltration, which is filtering or screening water of stones or any particles that can cause problems in the succeeding steps of the process.

There’s also sedimentation that uses a sedimentation basin or clarifier. It separates the floc, a term used for amorphous metal hydroxide, from the water. Another name for this is demineralized water, which was not considered ideal drinking water.

The study says removing minerals from the water causes digestive and urinary-related problems. Distilled water manufacturers say otherwise; minerals come from our food, not water.

For the biological processes, we have the slow sand filter and rapid sand filter. This method uses sand to filter water. The water seeps through layers of sand slowly until it is safe for consumption. The rapid sand filter uses sand as well. This method uses a layer of activated carbon that removes taste and odor in water.

This is the most common type of filter because the layer the water passes through is so thin that smaller elements can be filtered. So, as you know, sand filters have been used since the early 1800s. It was just experimental filtering that Mr. John Gibb did in Scotland. This process was polished over the years and finally was used as the means of water supply in the United Kingdom.

Why Purifying Water The Importance Of Water Purification

Chlorination and flocculation are the two chemical processes for water purification. Coagulation and flocculation add chemical components to the water to remove unwanted organic and inorganic particles.

Chlorination or Chlorine disinfection is the most common disinfection. It is harmful to both humans and germs to use this method. One of the best examples of chlorine disinfection is the one put in pools.    

Large consumption of water with chlorine but has fewer strong bad effects than pure chlorine.

When cholera was epidemic in 1854, in London, water chlorination helped disinfect the city. Chlorine was used to disinfect the water supply. It was John Snow who successfully used it.

Later, in 1879, William Soper used chlorinated lime to care for typhoid patients. Because of too many outbreaks and casualties (from the outbreak), permanent water chlorination was implemented.

The age of slow sand filtering has ended, and the chloride of lime helped solve the epidemic that had everyone relaxed at that time. Even in the age of the new world, chlorine and lime are used.

A solution of calcium hypochlorite in a linen bag, also known as Lyster or Lister bag, is used in the US military to purify the water while on the field. 

Boiling water, though, has been the oldest way of purifying water. Even at home, this is being practiced since this is the most effective way of removing microorganisms in water. We do it at home by putting a rubber or used cloth in it and then encircling it to the water hose.



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