Water filters are one of the essential equipment you would want to get installed at your home or office. But, there are multiple types of filters available in the market. Which type of water filter should you go for? What exactly are water filters made of? You will find answers to these queries and also learn how effective water filters are further in this post.
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What are Water Filters made of?
Well, water filters come with multiple technologies and construction types. The type of water filter you use would be dependent upon the exact filtration requirements you need. This will again be dependent upon the quality of water you get at your location.
Answering the question above is not quite simple and easy. It will ultimately be dependent on various factors. Some of these can be chemical properties of water, the condition of the water pipes, water pressure, budget, and your preferences.
Here are a few common types of water filters and what they are made up of-
Activated Alumina-Water Filters
As the name suggests, these filters make use of activated alumina as the cleaning material. Activated alumina is made up of Aluminium Oxide. These type of water filters can be used to clean off fluoride, arsenic, and selenium from your potable water.
The filter is filled with Activated alumina and takes care of removing 99 percent of fluoride concentration. These filters are also referred to as carbon block filters. These filters may be available as a standalone option or in combination with the other filtration methods, where carbon filtration is one of the filtration methods employed in a multi-stage water filter.
Filters with Activated Carbon
This type of filter is filled with activated carbon or activated charcoal. Activated carbon has been observed to have maximum pores and thus can block a lot of impurities from the water.
Activated carbon is a type of carbon that has gone through a process to maximize the number of pores on it. The water filters with activated carbon can be best if your water supply consists of a high degree of organic compounds.
Ceramic Filters
As the name itself should be indicative, these filters are made of ceramic. Ceramic, once again, has a huge number of pores on it. The size of the pores is quite smaller, and thus any impurity larger than these pores will be kept out.
These can also contain silver to address the concern of bacteria and prevent the formation of mould or algae inside the water. These filters generally do not require any electricity for functioning.
Reverse Osmosis Filter
The reverse osmosis filter is made of a membrane through which water is made to pass through. The membrane contains small pores through water is made to flow. The tiny pores will retain the impurities and let the pure water pass ahead for consumption. These filters make use of semi-permeable membranes for efficient filtration.
This type of water filters can be quite bulky as it consists of prefilters, post filters and the membrane used for the reverse osmosis process. But they can be effective in removing high-level impurities like metals and harmful chemicals. These filters often use multiple stages of filtration.
Ultraviolet Water Filter
The ultraviolet water filters come with a glass element. It also has a mechanism to aim ultraviolet rays towards the water flow. This helps in killing off all living microorganisms in the water supply.
This is one of the best options if your water supply is dangerous for consumption and consists of a high density of organisms like bacteria and others that can cause serious health concerns. The UV radiation attacks the DNA of the organisms to “kill” them.
Ion Exchange Water Filters
As the name itself is indicative enough, the ion exchange water filters involve a chemical cleaning up process. Ideally, the filters are made of a huge amount of zeolite beads containing sodium ions. When the water containing magnesium and calcium compounds is passed through these beads, they split into magnesium and calcium ions.
Which water filter should you go with?
We discussed a few salient types of water filters and their constituents above. Which one among these you should select is ideally dependent upon what type of water you receive in your area.
If your local water supply is polluted with just the physical impurities, it may be a good idea to go with a filter that can block them efficiently. A water filter with activated carbon or activated Alumina can be a good option from that perspective.
On the other extremity, highly contaminated water may need a reverse osmosis or UV exchange filtering functionality for efficient results. There are more modern water filters available with multiple filtering methods.
You can find advanced water filters that offer you a three stage or four stages filtering mechanism.
These provide you an activated carbon stage for cleaning the physical impurities along with the reverse osmosis stage for cleaning of the more heavy and stubborn contaminants. They can also offer you an intermediate UV filtering stage as well for killing the microorganisms.
Ultimately, your choice should ideally be dependent upon the exact status and quality of the water being supplied to you. One of the best options is to get your water quality checked by a professional service provider and then take a call on the best water filter that suits your needs.
The Concluding Thoughts
We are tried to cover all relevant information about types of various water filters and what they are made up of. Do note that the information provided above about the constituents of water filters is based on the basic functionality of these filters. The actual filters you find may come with other components for added features and efficiency which can differ considerably from one brand to another.
More often than not, it can even be a marketing gimmick alone, and the basic functionality and the constituents of the water filters would not be anything more than what we have described above.
