deionized water
 

Does any body use deionized water in there set up? If so were do you get it from. Having a hard time finding it on the net.

yes, local gas station.
deionized water isnt much different than battery water.

Chemistry time.

In water purification, there are various classes of electrolyte contamination. Various numerical standards exist for types of purity according to conductivity, but you can best recognize the following, in order of highest to lowest electrolyte (ion) content:

Hard water
Tap water
Soft water
Distilled water
Deionized water (DI)
Ultrapure water

Water in the latter two categories is very caustic because it will leech ions from whatever it contacts. Drinking a large amount of DI, for example, will cause it to pull calcium from your bones and sodium from your blood, making you ill.

DI will do the same thing to a water-cooling system by drawing metal from any aluminum, copper, etc. present. Such a small amount of water will not draw out enough metal to make a perceptable difference in the structure of your components, but it *will* cause the DI to increase its ion content, and thus its conductivity and ability to function as an electrolyte in a galvanic cell, such that it will protect your system no better than distilled water.

Since using DI or using distilled will give you the same result, use the cheaper one.

Alchemy

Ahh ok, doesnt look like ill be using that. hrrm, and this place sells it to drink?

I'm not trying to piss-off the pope here, but I don't agree. I have heard and seen this discounted too many times as a myth... (although I guess that could depend on what you call a large amount).

Quoted from Nutriteam FAQ http://www.nutriteam.com/distillerfaq.htm

3. Does distilled water leach minerals from my body?
No, that is not an accurate statement. Distilled water is the purest form of water, the universal solvent. Pure water does absorb discarded minerals and with the assistance of the blood and lymph(mostly water), transports them to the kidneys for elimination. It is this kind of mineral elimination that is incorrectly referred to as 'leaching'. The expression that distilled water leaches minerals from the body is inaccurate. Distilled water does not leach out body minerals, it collects and removes minerals which have been rejected by the cells and tissues, which if not evacuated, can cause arterial obstruction, arthritic deposits and other potentially serious bodily damage.

This quote is referring to distilled water but the same holds true for DI water because it isn't DI by the time it gets poured into a glass and drunk... :)


Agreed...

DI water is OK to use in a PC water-cooling system because it's a one time fill up and not a continuously filling process. By the time the DI water makes one pass thru the system it will have absorbed enough ions from surface contact and dissolve gases to be very far from deionized! So unless you have "free" access to DI water it doesn't make much sense to spend the extra money and isn't any better than good distilled water.

IMHO one of the best sources for PC water coolant is the grocery store - look for a brand of distilled water that has been RO (reverse osmossis) filtered, steam distilled and ozonated.

RoboTech,


I can tell you, because I've used it in labs, that Distilled and deionized are not the same, and that the statement does not apply to either types. ;)

The distilled water can be produced in many ways, but the simplest, and the defined way, is that the water is boiled, and re-collected as it condenses against a cold plate. The process removes biological things, but leaves some salts.

De-ionized water is completely stripped of all ions, and contains nothing but water. As such, it's in an unstable state, and it will regain it's balance, by stripping off ions, as Alchemy described above.

Hey Ben,

Yes, I understand that DI and distilled are not the same... :) My point was that too often I hear the general statement made that "DI water is bad for you, some even go so far as to claim poisonous, and that you should not drink it". Now I'm NOT suggesting that anyone should go out and start drinking DI water... but on the other hand if you were to drink a glass full, it wouldn't hurt you either. I think the key to Alchemy's statement is "in large quantities".

I am somewhat familiar with water purification. One of my responsibilities at the facillity where I work is maintaining some of the water purification systems (when I'm not programming robots). This is a pic of a typical industrial pure water system (semiconductor plant, etc.).

http://www.leesspace.com/images/Web_.../DI_plant1.jpg

City water > chlorine scrubber > water softner > RO filters > DI resin bed > UV light bank > Ozone addition. It generates pretty good high quality water (~15 Meg Ohm).

If that's not good enough for the end users (analytical labs) they run it thru point of use bench top finishing units.

http://www.leesspace.com/images/Web_...Millipore1.jpg

Here it goes thru several more resin bed DI and activated charcoal filters, UV light, another DI resin bed and membrane filter => ultra-pure water. Water conductivity measured with a flow cell is about 18.2 Meg Ohms but by the time it hits the air and sits in a glass beaker long enough to take a conductivity reading its already picked up enough ions to be down around 1 Meg Ohm.

I agree with your statement about distilled water (as long as it's steam distilled and not vacuum) - steam distillation is pretty good at killing and removing biologics but salts are generally NOT carried over. Distillation is considered one of the best purification methods but it is expensive (energy input) and will not remove other volatile contaminates with a similar or lower boiling point as water!

DI water is completely stripped of "ions" true, but that doesn't mean that it can't contain impurities and contamination. A DI filter (resin exchange bed) will only remove charged particles, everything else will pass thru unless it is physically held back due to particle size.

Edit: The "best" water purification systems use multi-phase purification (physical filtration, absorbtion-charcoal, RO, DI and distillation) as each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Put them all together and you should get pretty good water... :D

Again... IMHO one of the best sources for PC water coolant is the grocery store - look for a brand of distilled water that has been RO (reverse osmossis) filtered, steam distilled and ozonated. Man, all this talk about water is makin' me thirsty...

LOL!

Lots of good info, thanks!

Yeah, the DI statement would have to be about a huge unreasonable quantity of water, probably in a similar quantity as the guy who got fluoride poisoning from city water ;) .