Water softener

Hard water:
Hard water is a term that denotes water is having very high mineral content (Hard water is the opposite of soft water).As water percolates into deposits of calcareous,gypsum or chalk that are primarily composed of carbonates of magnesium or calcium,bicarbonates and sulfates hardwater is formed.Hard water is highly undesirable and can pose several major health concerns.The adverse effects of hard water are usually mitigated by the process of water softening.
Reason for hardness of water:
The hardness of the water is usually defined by the concentration of the multivalent cations that are present within the water.Multivalent cations are the metal complexes that hold positive charges and the magnitude of these charges is always greater than 1+.The cations usually bear apositive charge of 2+.In the sense of Hard watercertain specific cations are very common.Such examples include cations like ca2+ amd Mg2+.The ions can enter a reservoir of water within an aquifer via the leaching of minerals.Common minerals which contain are calcium are gypsum and calcite.Here Rain water and purified water are considered to be soft water because they have only a few iions dissolved in them.

Disadvantages of Hard water:
The main disadvantage of hard water is that the wastage of soap. During bathing activities, hard water does not freely lather with a soap solution and it develops gritty scum on the body. While in cooking activities, the boiling point of the water becomes increases due to the presence of the dissolved hardness-producins salts present in it. This will cause adverse effect on the food.

Is Hard water safe to drink:
Exist several health reports suggest that drinking of hard water usually contributes a small amount to overall human dietary needs in terms of calcium and magnesium requirements. Many researchers researched water haedness and its correlations with mortality from cardiovascular disease.

Hard water is undesirable-Why?
Hard water contains high concenyrations of dissolved calcium and magnesium. It is not a health risk but due to mineral deposition on plumbing fixtures ana poor soap or detergents results a nuisance. water is a strong solvent,Which it quickly absorbs impurities.Hard water can contribute to dry skin and hair.Washing your hair frequenly with hard water can leave your scalp feeling itchy.The minerals present in the hard water can also change the the pH balance of the skin,so that it as a barrier against harmfull bacteria and infections.

Soft Water:
The term soft water can be defined as surface water that it contains relatively low ion concentrations and is also lowin calcium and magnesium ions especially.Naturally soft water occurs where rough,impermeable and calcium -poor rocks are responsible for the formation of the runoff and the drinage basin of rivers.
Soft water is also used often to describe water created by a water softening process.

Signs of Soft water:
A healthy lather when washing clothes, dishes, and even your hands and body.
Clothes that are cleaner, with no mineral stains and less wear and tear damage
Healthy water pressure in the home.
A slight sodium taste in drinking water, through in many cases a difference in taste is imperceptible.

Water Softener and its Mechanism:

Water Softener:

Softening of hard water by synthetic ion-exchange resins:
The process of treating permanent hardness of water using synthetic resins is based on the exchange of cations (eg: Na2+,Ca2+,Mg2+ etc ) and anions (eg:Cl2- etc) present in water by H+ and OH- ions respectively. During the complete process, water first passes through the cation exchange process. The water obtained after this process is free from mineral cations and is acidic in nature. This acidic water is then passed through the anion exchange process where OH- ions neutralize the H+ ions and de-ionize the water obtained.

Chemical used for softening of hard water:
Water softening is described as the process that is used to remove the compounds such as calcium or magnesium salts or other metal cations that causes water to be hard.There are numerous processes of water softening,however,most of thepopular ones include the addition of chemicals.when chemical compounds are added they tend to form insoluble precipitates.some of the chemicalsused for softening include slaked lime or calcium hydroxide,ammonia,borax,trisodium phosphate etc.They are usually used in conjunction with sodium carbonate.ion-exchange resins are also used.

1. Price of Both Commercial and Domestic usage water softeners varies according to the size and water intake capacity of the device.
2. For regeneration purpose, both Manual and Automatic models are available.
3. Regeneration process is compulsory. The duration of regeneration differs according to the water usage and hardness present in the water.