Water, especially coming from wells and reservoirs, can have a lot of impurities in it. Iron is the most common one, which can ruin the taste and smell of water. You can install a whole house water filtration system for removing it. Here are the things you can do to remove iron from water.

Consider Getting A Reverse Osmosis Plant

Reverse osmosis is a great way to remove almost any kind of impurity in the water. The main feature of this system is a semi-permeable membrane, which allows water to go through it, but it traps all of the other unwanted metals and impurities behind it.

A reverse osmosis plant, however, can be expensive to install, so it’s better if you have a lot of water that needs to be purified, because only then a reverse osmosis plant is worth the splurge. This is one of the main reasons why it isn’t used as much in many households, rather its main use is in the industry.

Chlorinate The Water

Chlorine is a wonderful disinfectant to use in many situations, but it can be used to remove iron of bacterial origin as well. Bacteria thrive on iron and one way to eliminate both of these things from the water is through chlorination or shock chlorination. In this process, a large amount of chlorine, about 200 ppm, is added to a well or supply reservoir.

From there, the chlorine gets to work and it cleans the water as well as any other impurities present in the water as well. This process is great because it also cleans the well, so future contamination can be prevented.

To achieve the best results, it’s ensured that the chlorine reaches all the way down to the bottom of the well, so nothing is left untreated. This process can be tedious since you have to do it a couple of times to break the iron bonds from bacteria and flush them out of the water, but it works for cleaning poisoned wells and reserves, and chlorine is also a readily available substance, so it’s a quite reasonable process of removing metal impurities as well as bacteria from the water.

Get A Water Softener

Water softeners don’t just make the water soft and remove calcium and magnesium; they can also remove iron. There are water softeners that are specially designed for water with iron in them.

When water passes through the water softening chamber, not only does it get free from calcium and magnesium, but it will also get rid of iron, which can make your water look murky and brown and it can impart a metallic taste in it as well. The water softener system Warren will get rid of all of these impurities and you will be left with soft, iron-free, and safe drinking water.

Try A Catalytic Filtration System

A catalytic filtration system consists of the oxidation of iron ions present in the water with dissolved oxygen. Basically, the process is done by introducing air or oxygen in its pure form, into the water, with continuous agitation, which helps in the mixing of the two substances.

Once the precipitates start to form, they can be removed by sand filtration. The sand allows the precipitates to be trapped behind while clean water will go through the pipes and into your taps and faucets. Catalytic filtration gets rid of the metallic taste in the water as well.

Use Filters For Removing Iron

There are special filters, like normal cylindrical filters, which are meant to remove iron from water. These filters are attached in the same way as any other filter would be, and the water comes into your taps and faucets after being passed through the filter.

The sieves in iron filters are finer and durable enough to catch metal impurities. All you need to take care of, is the consistent changing of the filters, since they can get clogged pretty fast, as compared to normal filters.

Phosphate Treatment

This is an electrolytic process in which iron combines with phosphate ions and gets precipitated so that it can be easily removed. The chamber contains two electrodes; the anode will be an iron electrode and the cathode will be a phosphate-based electrode. The electrodes are submerged in a phosphate solution, which has oxygen in it as well.

As soon as the electricity passes, the iron ions will go from the anode and get mixed with phosphate ions, resulting in the formation of iron phosphate, which can be easily separated from the solution, because it is present in the form of thick chunks, called precipitates.

Treatment With Manganese

This process is also called oxidizing filtration. In this process, there is a compound used called manganese greensand. It is present in the form of a packed bed so that the maximum amount of water can come in contact with it at one time.

Once the water comes in contact with the greensand, the iron in the water reacts with the manganese and it turns into a solid substance, which can be easily skimmed from the solution, through sieves or meshes.

This mechanism is usually attached to the pipes coming into the house, which bring water from the supply to the taps. Now, the greensand does get degenerated during the reaction, and to replenish it, a constant stream of potassium permanganate is added to the bed of the greensand, from where the manganese will be restored and it can continue to remove iron from the impure water.

It is an effective filtration system and it removes about 15 ppm (parts per million) of iron from water coming from wells and supply reservoirs. The system is easy to install too and the results will be amazing.

Treatment With Ozone

Last but not least, if you’re looking for a better disinfectant than chlorine, then ozone is the next in line. It has great oxidizing capacities, more than chlorine actually, and it does wonders in getting rid of impurities from water, even iron. In the ozone filtration system, there is a chamber, where water comes in contact with the ozone, and any unwanted metal, iron, in this case, is removed through natural precipitation.

Afterward, the precipitates are removed from the water through an activated carbon filter, which literally sucks out the precipitates from the water, like a magnet. It is a great technique to remove substances like Sulphur, iron, and other metals.

The only downside to this entire filtration system is that it is very expensive. Since ozone is not a readily available material, unlike chlorine which is cheap and available almost everywhere, it can be hard to justify the price of this filtration system.

Another major drawback is that ozone filtration systems can’t be used in humid climates/weather. The surrounding air needs to be dry, otherwise, ozone will not be able to exhibit its oxidation properties to the max. Since not all places have dry and hot climates, a lot of people believe that it’s not a good choice for their homes.

Conclusion

Iron can be removed very easily through one of these methods and you will be left with clean and potable water with zero impurities. Install any of the above water filtration system Erie to get rid of iron from drinking water.