How To Remove Iron From Drinking Water

To remove iron from water, check out the following whole home iron filter methods:

1. Ion Exchange Method

An ion exchange residue helps exchange harmless ions with iron ions. The residue needs to be regenerated in order to work.

There is also another issue. This method only works best if there is less quantity of iron inside the water and exists inside a soluble state.

2. Use of Iron Filters

If you have higher concentrations of iron inside water, in both dissolved and precipitated form, you can take the help of iron filters. These filters are similar to whole home water softening units but they differ in bed formation.

Whole home iron filter uses a medium bed, which possesses mild oxidative powers. When iron bearing water is passed through the iron filter, the medium bed oxidizes soluble ferrous ions into insoluble ferric ions. The insoluble ions are then filtered out, thereby purifying the water whereas precipitated filter is simply removed from mechanical means.

The most common used mediums in filters are MTM, manganese greensand, Birm and ordinary sand. However, it is observed that a medium filter of higher oxides of manganese gives effective iron removing results.

3. Chemical Feed Pumps

When you can neither avail the option of ion exchange method nor use iron filters, whole home chemical feed pumps are used to inject a solution of oxidizing agent into the water. The most common oxidizing agents used in chemical filters are potassium permanganate, sodium hypochlorite and calcium hypochlorite. The oxidizing agent provides two functions:

1. It oxidizes dissolved iron into undissolved form, making it easier to filter.

2. It attaches with organic matter present inside the water.

Thanks to either of hypochlorites used in water treatment, the water will also get disinfected. For best results, the oxidizing solutions should be inserted into water lines before mixing. Without having an initial contact, the tank will ensure complete reaction with both, iron and organic matter inside the water. In most cases, the pressure tank of water treatment system does the trick but sometimes, slow reaction of organic matter may require additional time.

4. Water Softening Filters

Most people prefer the use of fleck 5600sxt water softener filters because they remove hardness of water, as well as iron from water. The total improvement of water quality, increases to a large extent, which satisfies most users.

Industrial water softeners are used to remove the dissolved iron via ion exchange and as far as precipitation is concerned, filtration can take care of it.

However, there is one vital issue with water softening filters. Inside the regeneration process, it is tough to take out the iron as it forms a gelatinous base with the medium bed. Once a water softener has been fouled, it is important to clean it but you can save yourself a lot of trouble if you replace the medium bed with new ion exchange resins. Cleaning has a risk of having some amount of percentage error and since medium beds are very cheap in price, it is convenient to replace them.