A water filter removes impurities by lowering contamination of water using a fine physical barrier, a chemical process, or a biological process. Filters cleanse water to different extents, for purposes such as: providing agricultural irrigation , accessible drinking water , public and private aquariums , and the safe use of ponds and swimming pools .
29-671: The Jardine Water Purification Plant , formerly the Central District Filtration Plant , is a water filtration plant located at 1000 East Ohio Street, north of Navy Pier in Chicago , Illinois . It draws raw water from two of the city's water cribs far offshore in Lake Michigan and supplies two thirds of City of Chicago consumers in the northern, downtown, and western parts of the city and to many northern and western surrounding suburbs. The plant
58-425: A manufacturer of aquarium filters may claim that its filters perform water polishing by capturing "micro particles" within nylon or polyester pads, just as a chemical engineer can use the term to refer to the removal of magnetic resins from a solution by passing the solution over a bed of magnetic particulate. In this sense, water polishing is simply another term for whole house water filtration systems. Polishing
87-792: A mechanical hand pump, although some use a siphon drip system to force water through, while others are built into water bottles. Dirty water is pumped via a screen-filtered flexible silicon tube through a specialized filter, ending up in a container. These filters work to remove bacteria , protozoa and microbial cysts that can cause disease. Filters may have fine meshes that must be replaced or cleaned, and ceramic water filters must have its outside abraded when they have become clogged with impurities. These water filters should not be confused with devices or tablets that disinfect water, which remove or kill viruses such as hepatitis A and rotavirus . Ceramic filters represent low-cost solutions to water filtration and are widely adhered to despite being one of
116-483: A range of greys and pink or reddish browns, depending on the other minerals present. Iron compounds give the reddish-browns. In addition to being unsightly and hard to clean, limescale can seriously damage or impair the operation of various plumbing and heating components. Descaling agents are commonly used to remove limescale. Prevention of fouling by scale build-up relies on the technologies of water softening or other water treatment. The type found deposited on
145-449: A sieve or screen , a filter can potentially remove particles much smaller than the holes through which its water passes, such as nitrates or germs like Cryptosporidium . Among the methods of filtration, notable examples are sedimentation , used to separate hard and suspended solids from water and activated charcoal treatment, where, typically, boiled water is poured through a piece of cloth to trap undesired residuals. Additionally,
174-559: A statue, Hymn to Water , by Milton Horn graces the front entrance. The southern portion of the city and many southern suburbs are served by a separate plant, the Sawyer Water Purification Plant . Together the two plants supply water to about 3 million households in the city and 118 suburbs. Filtration methods used by the Jardine Water Plant is extraction and adding chemical additives; with
203-513: A stone board when cut flat. This artificial stone found use throughout the Rhineland and was very popular for columns , window frames, and even altars . Use of "Eifel marble" can be seen as far east as Paderborn and Hildesheim , where it was used in the cathedrals . Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark is the northernmost location of its use, where several gravestones are made of it. Trade to
232-415: Is a multi-barrier system. Jug filters can be used for small quantities of drinking water. Some kettles have built-in filters, primarily to reduce limescale build-up. Water filters are used by hikers, aid organizations during humanitarian emergencies, and the military. These filters are usually small, portable and lightweight (1–2 lb (0.45–0.91 kg) or less). These usually filter water by working
261-461: Is added and heated, the process continues: CO 2 gas is again removed, carbonate concentration increases, and more calcium carbonate precipitates. Scale is often colored because of the presence of iron -containing compounds. The three main iron compounds are wüstite (FeO), hematite (Fe 2 O 3 ), and magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ). The Roman Eifel Aqueduct was completed around 80 AD and broken and largely destroyed by Germanic tribes in 260. By
290-498: Is also done on a large scale in water reclamation plants. 4000 years ago, in India, Hindus devised the first drinking water standards. Hindus heated dirty water by boiling it and exposing it to sunlight or dipping it seven times in hot pieces of copper, then filtering it through earthen vessels and cooling it. This was an enlightened procedure to obtain sterilized drinking water as well as to keep it aesthetically pleasing. This method
319-458: Is an equilibrium between dissolved calcium bicarbonate and dissolved calcium carbonate as represented by the chemical equation Note that CO 2 is dissolved in the water. Carbon dioxide dissolved in water (aq) tends to equilibrate with carbon dioxide in the gaseous state (g): The equilibrium of CO 2 moves to the right, toward gaseous CO 2 , when water temperature rises or pressure falls. When water that contains dissolved calcium carbonate
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#1732790339049348-566: Is generally acknowledged as the first city to receive filtered water for an entire town. The Paisley filter began operation in 1804 and was an early type of slow sand filter. Throughout the 1800s, hundreds of slow sand filters were constructed in the UK and on the European continent. An intermittent slow sand filter was constructed and operated at Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1893 due to continuing typhoid fever epidemics caused by sewage contamination of
377-431: Is warmed, CO 2 leaves the water as gas, this reduces the amount involved in the reaction causing the equilibrium of bicarbonate and carbonate to re-balance to the right, increasing the concentration of dissolved carbonate. As the concentration of carbonate increases, calcium carbonate precipitates as the salt : Ca + CO 3 → CaCO 3 . In pipes as limescale and in surface deposits of calcite as travertine or tufa
406-525: The heating elements of water heaters consists mainly of calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ). Hard water contains calcium (and often magnesium ) bicarbonate or similar ions. Calcium, magnesium, and carbonate ions dissolve from rocks through which rainwater percolates before collection. Calcium salts, such as calcium carbonate and calcium bicarbonate (Ca(HCO 3 ) 2 ), are more soluble in hot water than cold water; thus, heating water does not cause calcium carbonate to precipitate per se . However, there
435-600: The 18th century, and the first municipal water treatment plant was built in Scotland in 1832. However, the aesthetic value of water was important at the time, and effective water quality standards did not exist until the late 19th century. During the 19th and 20th centuries, water filters for domestic water production were generally divided into slow sand filters and rapid sand filters (also called mechanical filters and American filters). While there were many small-scale water filtration systems prior to 1800, Paisley, Scotland
464-534: The Middle Ages the limestone-like limescale accretions from the inside of the aqueduct were particularly desirable as a building material, called "Eifel marble" in an area with little natural stone. In the course of operation of the aqueduct, many sections had a layer as thick as 20 centimetres (8 in). The material had a consistency similar to brown marble and was easily removable from the aqueduct. Upon polishing, it showed veins, and it could also be used like
493-401: The cloister roof, alternating with columns of Purbeck Marble. These large cathedral cloisters needed several hundred such columns around an open quadrangle, which must have been supplied by a well-organized extraction and transport operation. The Eifel deposits, now called Calcareous sinter or calc-sinter (since it is neither onyx nor marble ), have also been identified at Rochester and in
522-489: The filter material during expansion. Limescale Limescale is a hard, chalky deposit, consisting mainly of calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ). It often builds up inside kettles , boilers , and pipework, especially that for hot water. It is also often found as a similar deposit on the inner surfaces of old pipes and other surfaces where hard water has flowed. Limescale also forms as travertine or tufa in hard water springs. The colour varies from off-white through
551-405: The microscope was invented and the relationship between microorganisms and disease became clear. In the mid-19th century, cholera was proven to be transmitted by contaminated water. In the late 19th century, Louis Pasteur 's theory of the particulate pathogen finally established a causal relationship between microorganisms and disease. Filtration as a method of water purification was established in
580-633: The oldest methods of filtration. These filters are found not only inside the homes of families but also used in industrial engineering (as high-temperature filters) for several processes. The conventional ceramic filters used for day-to-day water consumption, known as candle-type filters, work with gravity and a central candle, which makes the filtration process significantly long. The term water polishing can refer to any process that removes small (usually microscopic) particulate material, or removes very low concentrations of dissolved material from water. The process and its meaning vary from setting to setting:
609-426: The primary driver of calcite formation is the exsolution of gas. When heating hard water on the stove, these gas bubbles form on the surface of the pan prior to boiling. Gas exsolution can also occur when the confining pressure is released such as when you take the top off a beer bottle or where subsurface water is flowed into an atmospheric pressure tank. As new cold water with dissolved calcium carbonate/bicarbonate
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#1732790339049638-978: The use of machinery to work on desalinization and purification of water through the transposal of it into multiple-filtration water tanks is used. This technique is aimed at the filtration of water on bigger scales, such as serving entire cities. These three methods are particularly relevant, as they trace back centuries and are the base for many of the modern methods of filtration used today. Types of water filters for municipal and other large treatment systems include media filters , screen filters , disk filters , slow sand filter beds , rapid sand filters , cloth filters , and biological filters such as algae scrubbers . Point-of-use filters for home use include granular-activated carbon filters used for carbon filtering , depth filter , metallic alloy filters , microporous ceramic filters , carbon block resin , microfiltration and ultrafiltration membranes. Some filters use more than one filtration method. An example of this
667-464: The use of sand and gravel to filter the water, while the chemical additives being fluoride to fight off tooth decay, phosphates to avoid corrosion from the pipes, and chlorine for disinfection. 41°53′41″N 87°36′22″W / 41.8947°N 87.6062°W / 41.8947; -87.6062 Water filtration Filters use sieving , adsorption , ion exchanges , biofilms and other processes to remove unwanted substances from water. Unlike
696-456: The water supply. The first continuously operating slow sand filter was designed by Allen Hazen for the city of Albany, New York in 1897. The most comprehensive history of water filtration was published by Moses N. Baker in 1948 and reprinted in 1981. In the 1800s, mechanical filtration was an industrial process that depended on the addition of aluminium sulfate prior to the filtration process. The filtration rate for mechanical filtration
725-412: The water". The Egyptians reportedly used used alum to clarify water as early as 1500 BC. Persian engineer Al-Karaji ( c. 953 – c. 1029 ) wrote a book, The Extraction of Hidden Waters , which gave an early description of a water filtration process. Until the invention of the microscope, the existence of microscopic life was undiscovered. More than 200 years passed before
754-424: The west took it to England as a high-status export material in the 11th and 12th centuries, where it was made into columns for a number of Norman English Cathedrals. The impressive polished brown stone was known for many years as 'Onyx Marble'. Its origin and nature was a mystery to people studying the stonework at Canterbury Cathedral , until its source was identified in 2011. It is used there as columns supporting
783-472: Was constructed in the 1960s and began functioning in 1968. The plant was renamed after James W. Jardine (1908-1977), a 42-year city employee, who served as water commissioner from 1953 until his retirement in 1973. Shortly thereafter the Ohio Street Beach was formed in the bay created by the plant. Landscaping around the plant and in the adjoining Milton Olive Park was designed by Dan Kiley , and
812-587: Was directed at individuals and households rather than for use as a community water source. In China, boiling water was found to reduce the spread of disease. To this day, hot water just below boiling point is typically served in Chinese restaurants. 2,000 years ago, Mayan drinking water filtration systems used crystalline quartz and zeolite . Both minerals are used in modern water filtration. "The filters would have removed harmful microbes, nitrogen-rich compounds, heavy metals such as mercury and other toxins from
841-573: Was typically more than 60 times faster than slow sand filters, thus requiring significantly less land area. The first modern mechanical filtration plant in the U.S. was built at Little Falls, New Jersey , for the East Jersey Water Company. George W. Fuller designed and supervised the construction of the plant which went into operation in 1902. In 1924, John R. Baylis developed a fixed grid backwash assist system, which consisted of pipes with nozzles that injected jets of water into
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