subject: What to Look for When Buying a Water Purifier [print this page] What to Look for When Buying a Water Purifier
There's lots of talk about water purifiers these days, but what many people don't know is that the UV water purifier component could mean the difference between sickness and health, or even life and death.
We all want cleaner drinking water, such that many of us put simple water purifiers on our water faucets or in our refrigerator water filter systems. However, most of these filters are carbon filters meant to filter out sediment and improve water taste. They will take out impurities so that water tastes better, and they'll remove many contaminants, making water healthier.
What's important to know about a UV water purifier, though, is that it destroys microorganisms other filter systems just can't. Here's how UV filters can benefit your own home water filtration system:
They destroy bacterial microorganisms
The UV filters destroy bacterial microorganisms other filters and systems can't. Even though city water, for example, is often purified with chlorine, many bacteria are chlorine resistant. That means dangerous levels of bacteria can remain in your water.
These bacteria are among the most serious threats to human health, because they cause disease so instantaneously. For example, cryptosporidium is a waterborne parasite that causes diarrhea and vomiting; it can be fatal in those with compromised or inadequate immune systems, such as the very young, the very old, those with HIV/AIDS, and so on. Other bacterial organisms are just as damaging, especially to those with compromised immune systems.
They work best in conjunction with other conventional water filtration components
UV water purifiers are excellent at destroying bacteria, but they don't remove sediment. Therefore, it's best to use UV filters in conjunction with other filtration media so as to remove all contamination.
How do UV filters work?
UV filters work because ultraviolet light can destroy bacterial microorganisms' DNA; with that, they can't reproduce. Their ability to reproduce is what makes certain kinds of bacteria so dangerous; without the ability to reproduce, they'll easily die or be destroyed in the immune system.
The industry standard for UV water purifier lamps is 254 nm of ultraviolet light. This destroys bacteria, but is perfectly safe for humans. However, don't look at any UV bulb directly, because you could damage your eyes.
Buying the right UV water purifier
Almost every UV water purifier on the market is going to have another type of filtration system in use along with UV filters. These filtration systems work to remove odor, sediment, bad taste, synthetic chemicals, bacteria, and other contaminants from drinking water so that it is indeed safe.
Check for manufacturer's specifications
Each manufacturer is going to have a minimum amount of UV energy needed to destroy the contaminants in drinking water for that particular filter. Third-party labs and government organizations set the proper dosages. The most reputable of these is the NSF, which originally began in 1944 as the National Sanitation Foundation. The NSF sets standards for home water treatment systems, and specifically sets ultraviolet water filtration units to a standard 55, which means that the minimum safe dosage is 40 milli joules (mJ)/cm2; this may alternately be stated as 40 milli watts (mW) /cm2 or 40,000 nano watts (uw)/cm2.
You should also pay attention to the flow rate; in general, a 10-gallon-per-minute flow rate is sufficient for a home's drinking water.
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