2019.09.20 - Environment-friendly water cleaning methods

Environment-friendly water cleaning methods

The water of beaches and pools isn't tested in only laboratories but the average person can feel it on their skin if it has some chemical or biological problem with it too. Naturally the best-case scenario would be if the water wouldn’t need to be cleaned, but unfortunately, that’s not possible.

The simple visitor could think that they put chlorine in the water to kill bacterias and that's it but this is not that simple. Not only bacterias are needed to be removed, but multiple chemicals are harmful to the human body, the infrastructure of the bath, the pipes or even the walls of the pools. All of these problems can’t be solved with only chlorine. We need to understand the fact that not every water cleaning method is not environmentally friendly. A part of these methods is already environment-friendly. For example, methane can be removed with only making the water flow on a large surface while it can breathe. Lime can be fought with magnets which technique is getting more and more popular. Strong magnets placed around the pipes shield them from it. 

Bathing lakes

The idea of ecological water cleaning comes from natural pools. A lake that has biological balance can have very clean water without any clearing system. Clearing and filtering are done by plants and other unharmful microorganisms instead of machines in these natural waters. Only a part of these natural waters are available for people, the other part (~30%) is filled with hydrophytes among which are the pumping pipes. Plants and the gravel on the bottom filter the water so it can arrive clean at the bathing part. Of course, we shouldn’t expect this water to be as clear as the ones in pools, but there isn’t any chlorine in it neither. All around the world more and more natural waters are being inhabited by people even on beaches. In only Germany, there are at least 100 of these. The number of private natural lakes in the same country is around 20 000. 

Nanotechnology 

The technology which is being developed by the University of Szeged is on the edge of coming true. The essential of this idea is that even the light of the sun is enough to disassemble harmful substances, it just needs a little bit of help. This is why this water cleaning device is made out of a nanotechnological material that can catalyze the sun's capability of molecule-splitting, this is why it is able to disassemble these organic contaminations including chemical residues and living organisms.

Ozone and UV light 

Ozone based water cleaning method is also relatively new. Ozone is even more oxidative than chlorine which makes it able to disassemble any kind of microorganism or substance it meets so it converts them into filterable residues. It is so strong that microorganisms can’t defend themselves against it. Since ozone is not else than three oxygen atoms attached unstably it falls apart by itself after a while turning into normal oxygen, this is why it is environmentally friendly. Since ozone is being generated by the UV coming from the sun, ozone making machines use UV too to create it. Since UV is also disinfectant they usually combine the two methods, but there are techniques where they use UV only. These work like this: water flows through UV lamps which light the water with a wavelength of around 240 nanometers. This wavelength seriously lysis the DNAs of pathogens which makes them unable to multiply. After this, the water can flow right to the taps, since there aren’t any harmful chemicals left in it which could endanger people.