Letter 11017

Human consumption of deionized water 

I've read several comments that tap water is safe, but I've worked in water toxicology and sewage treatment for many years and can state with tap water is only safe to a certain degree and under certain circumstances.

If your tap water is recycled sewage water, it will contain contaminants that sewage treatment cannot remove such as pharmaceutical drugs that come through urine among others. These contaminants are too costly to remover from public water supplies and are not tested for for regulation purposes.

Your tap water will likely be fairly safe relative to bacteria and heavy metals in most of the U.S.

Chlorine is not safe to drink or shower in. Most people absorb as much chlorine bathing as they do drinking tap water. Filtered tap water does not remove all chlorine.

Spring water from known, uncontaminated sources would probably be best, but bottled water is not tested as vigorously as city water even, so it's hard to know without doing your own extensive research and testing.

Which leads me back to deionized water. I use deionized water that I remineralize with minerals taken from an ancient sea bed. But who knows, it could contain too much lead! Or the extraction machines could contaminated it with VOCs...

Plastic bottled water contains dioxins -- another modern nightmare.

Bottom line is that it's tough to live, eat, sleep and poop in the same place and not get contaminated. We live in our own garbage dumps essentially.

I used to identify homes in Florida with wells built next to "cattle dipping" troughs that were filled with arsenic at one time. Families, especially kids, would get extremely ill and have no idea why because glass and weeds had grown over the dipping tanks by then. The ground permeability if Florida is very high.

If I could get safe spring water in glass bottles, that would be best I think. Fresh, clean, "living water" is best.

For now, I usually use remineralized deionized water and have had no problem health problems from this approach. Many minerals are essential to health, and it has been demonstrated that people who live in places with hard water (like the mountains) generally have lower incidence of heart disease. Much of the farm land, and therefore vegetables and animals, is depleted of key minerals and trace minerals that have unknown effects on health when consuming products from this soil.

If you can't afford to remineralized deionized water, I would NOT drink it. Even taking a mineral complex will not cover all the trace elements that are essential in very small quantities.

One more thing about tap water. The chlorine kills bacteria; the bad AND the good. That will lead to stomach problems because good stomach health depends on a BALANCE of "good" and "bad" bacteria. The best protection against illness is a strong supply of "good" digestive track microflora. They kill the "bad" ones. Antibiotics often kill the "good" and "bad," leaving a dangerous state where reinfection or illness can occur if the "good" bacteria are not replenished properly.

Steven Sauder
hobbyist - Spokane, WA, USA

I found this thread interesting because in my search I have not been able to find anything very convincing on either side of the argument about consumption of DI water. I am a chemist at a community college and drink our DI water daily, despite warnings that it will deplete my system of vital nutrients. I understand the theory behind the leaching of minerals from our bodies to replace what is lacking in the water, but biochemically it doesn't make sense to me. I would think that the chemical composition of the water would be altered almost immediately either due to the presence of chyme in our stomachs or, in the case of an empty stomach, due to the chemical nature of our digestive juices. I would be so interested to hear a nutritionist's or biochemist's take on this topic. Does anyone have a chemical explanation of the processes that occur upon ingestion of DI water? Thank you, Margherita

Margherita Smith
Education - Paso Robles, CA, USA

Ed. note: We also have another thread on the same topic, letter 15665.

They say DI water is good. Can some give light to this article
http://english.pravda.ru/science/health/24-10-2006/85185-water-0

Bhasker Sharma
student - Kolkata, WB, India

I must say it certainly interesting following this thread over the past few years. My understanding is that the risk with DI water is that it flows freely into cells, then pulls in nutrients so quickly through osmosis that the cell essentially bursts. In large amounts this could be a real problem, in small amounts it is probably no big deal. Moderation. Now that's my understanding of the risk...In reality, DI water may be altered very quickly in the digestive tract and blood that it simply doesn't have this effect on the cells.

I've just added this site to my favorites bin.

Brett Gardner
- Folsom, CA, USA

Thanks for your insight, Brett, as well as the kind words.

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

Does DI water have a specific pH? Mine is reading 10.68 which seems a little high. We are using this in a science lab. What is an acceptable pH?

Bronwyn Duncan
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Is deionized water safe to inhale?

I am not even going to act like I know anything about this subject. I have not researched the subject much before posting my question but I run a medical equipment and supply company and I was just asked this question by a patient's family member. That, of course has brought me to the beginning of my research and thought while I was researching myself I could be waiting for answers from you folks who seem to be well educated in the subject. I thank you all for any information you could send my way.

Thanks,

Shari Kinyon
Healthcare Industry - Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

Bronwyn,

DI water has a pH of 7.00 ±.05, as pure water, by definition, has a pH of 7. Since DI water is *almost* pure, it should be close to 7. A pH of 10 to 11 would be like hand soap or ammonia. So, either your DI water is contaminated or your pH meter is not calibrated properly (probably the latter). Any good pH meter should give a pH very near 7.00 when measuring DI water. Those meters have calibration fluids that you get from the manufacture for the purpose of calibrating them. You can also verify this with a simple litmus test to eliminate the water as the problem. So check those out. Another issue with some electrode pH meters is that chemically pure water, like DI, has no ions (hence its name), and thus produces no EMF across the electrode (they become insulated), so the meter can give unpredictable results.

I used to work in a medical laboratory and we would actually use our in house DI water to do quick (and "dirty") calibrations of our pH meters for our HPLC instruments.

Hope that answers your question, and sorry for the tangents.

To everyone else,

Back to the main thread. In the medical lab I worked in, we were also told not to drink the DI water. Mostly because of cost. It is very expensive to maintain a reliable tap source of DI water in a building. The other reason is the UNPREDICTABLE health issue that may be caused but drinking said water. This also eliminates them from liability if you do get sick 20 years down the road after drinking water that came from their system. From a chemistry standpoint, the leaching of minerals in the body is definitely plausible and has been observed in laboratory animals and human subjects. You must be very careful when drinking DI water if you choose to waste your money. You have to be sure that you are intaking those electrolytes through food or other means that would normally be in the water.

In response to a few people who have raised the question of "Even if the water does leach minerals they are still in your body right?" Not true. Name one excreted fluid from the human body is pure water. None. All excreted fluids from the body contain electrolytes or salts (Urine, sweat, tears etc.) Unless you replace those excreted minerals, you can develop an electrolyte imbalance which can lead to all sorts of uncomfortable symptoms and even death.

That's said, why go through all the trouble? Just find the cleanest spring water you can and drink it. The bottom line is that there hasn't been enough research on human subject either way to confirm any sort of conclusion on this matter. We may have to wait awhile until "ordinary" water sources become scarce enough that wide spread desalination and demineralization of non-potable water occurs. Then, perhaps, more research will be done.

Eric Lane
- Los Angeles, CA, USA

Regarding pH of DI water, my understanding is that it has no pH by definition. This is because pH is effectively a measure of the extent to which the molecules of water are disassociated into ions. That only occurs in the presence of salt/base ions. DI water has had it's ions removed (QED) ergo, no actual measurement of pH is valid. An experiment using a very clean pH probe can show that DI water exposed to the atmosphere will be very erratic, then stabilize, and slowly drop, due to the formation of very low levels of carbonic acid, as atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed..hope this response from a biologist can be endorsed or corrected by a chemist?

Aaron Fielder
pharmaceuticals - Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

I am a mechanical engineer and by no means a biologist but we use both Deionized and distilled water in out facility I have witnessed the "Leaching" properties on DI water as opposed to distilled water in our systems. The DI water corrodes the hard piping (steel, copper, brass, stainless steel etc...) causing buildup in out closed loop system and raising the conductivity of our water system (which is critical to our process) and is recommended only to be ran in PVC piping. The distilled water seems to be harmless to the piping, though we have only been using it for a relatively short period of time (about two years). As far as being safe to drink the "industrial grade" we use is not suitable to drink because of contaminates left in the water in the deionizing process, however I am in the process of building a new home and one of the most prestigious upgrades is a whole home Reverse Osmosis system (A.K.A. Deionized Water).

Roland Rodriguez
- Houston Tx

I have recently started drinking de-ionized water. I stumbled across this site in my search for the facts about DI consumption. I have a couple of basic questions. If I take a mineral supplement with trace minerals also...will the DI absorb them from my stomach?
Are there not many things in my stomach that would re-ionize the water once it comes in contact with it?
The DI does seem to dry out my mouth quicker than bottled, purified water...and my TDS meter tells me I have 001 PPM.
I hope I might get an answer here. I have enjoyed the postings..but it has left me a bit confused.
Thank you.

Scott Metro
hobbyist - Pahrump, NV, USA

Distilled water is any water water boiled and recondensed so that there is no component other than H2O. Double distillation produces the closest practical thing to "pure" water.

Deionized water has been processed to remove ions from solution in water. These ions are typically associated with mineral components in the water, so deionized water is essentially mineral-free. Deionization by itself does not remove any non-ionically dissolved components. This means that organic compounds (which are covalently bonded, not ionically bonded) and anything in suspension (like viruses and bacteria) are not removed by deionization alone. Most DI processes include means to remove these as well, so the end result is "pure" water for the purposes discussed here.

Educational note: pH is the representation of the concentration of hydrogen protons. It gets complex when related to "pure" water, but for practical purposes the pH of pure water is very nearly 7.00. It is not true that pure water has no pH. You do get funny readings when you try to measure it with common pH measuring devices, though. That's because the electrodes in the device rely on having some ions available to allow a small current to flow, which pure water lacks. This does not mean the water has no pH, just that typical measuring devices don't work well on pure water.

As far as the effects of drinking these, I doubt you'll ever find an exact answer. If you drink only pure water, you'd likely have problems with electrolytic balance, but the same is true if you intake too much water with minerals in it. I do not have a medical background, but I can't see how a glass or two will do harm. The mineral content "stripped" from your body would be small. You probably remove more cells from your body when you wash your hands or shower (remember that soap is a mild base, and cell proteins are made of amino acids, and what happens when they meet is not good for the cell). Also, as far as making coffee, you've so completely "contaminated" the pure water with the coffee that the question is moot - so drink up!

A note on "live", "clustered", "vitalized", etc. water. There is no legitimate science that supports any of this. Same thing with magnetic treatment of water. Go to www.chem1.com/CQ/ if you want to know more.

Alex Hyde
- Phoenix, AZ, USA

I know that this thread is about drinking straight DI but it seems as if most of the posts here are from people who like the idea of the pure water and already have a source of DI.
This goes back a long time. We use DI water in our testing process in large quantities. Our lab has two water systems. The DI water system is made from 316SS tubing. we quickly found that the water was dissolving the solder used to join the connections. We replaced the solder joints with stainless compression fittings. We later found that the lab faucets that we were using had a brass piece inside that was eaten away until the faucets leaked. The faucet company replaced them with stainless pieces and we haven't had any problems since.
Our well water has over 1200 uS DiST (very hard) and has a rotten egg smell that is really unpleasant. We use the well water for our process in its raw form as the impurities are immediately consumed. We use a softener and carbon filters to mitigate the smell in the office space but some still refuse to drink it. We were spending over $5000 per year on bottled water.
Being the experimenters that we are we tested ways to deactivate the DI water since the office use would only be a fraction of our total usage, and we pay a contract fee for our DI equipment. Here is what we found:
DI water will dissolve a Centrum tablet 10 times faster than water, almost as fast as a 10% sulfuric acid solution. One tablet will deactivate up to 10 gal of water but leaves a funny taste and particles that need to be filtered out. Calcium supplements don't dissolve very fast and make the water stink.
Table salt will deactivate the water but only in amounts high enough to taste. The water also has a detectable amount of sodium hydrochloride after being passed through a coffee maker.
Sodium bicarbonate deactivates the water but is difficult to meter into a pressurized system, and it creates a gas that must be removed. It changes the flavor but it's a good change.
Passing the water over copper and zinc deactivates the water but only with adequate contact time. We use wads of zinc and copper wire inside a stainless vessel. the "re ionizer" is a section of 2" SS pipe with stainless bell reducers on each end. We originally used a standard wound cotton filter cartridge with copper balls inside the cartridge and zinc pellets around the outside we couldn't keep the contact time high enough.
We use several hundred gallons of this water monthly for everything except flushing the toilets and watering flowers, and have found no ill effects. adding a small amount of Sodium Bicarbonate to the water makes it delicious. We keep a pump bottle next to the sink with a baking soda solution premixed.
Water doesn't like to be in a deionized state and seems to become stable at ~50 uS. "They" say you should consume 8 glasses of liquid per day but some of that comes from the food you eat. If you eat only dried things you will need to drink more water. Same idea. The DI is going to absorb something so you may as well put in what you want, or just consume more minerals (maybe take a children's multivitamin with each glass, lotta work).
All of our water is UV disinfected as it comes out of the ground, so that is not an issue.

Don Donovan
- Atlanta Area, Ga USA

I was once told by my dog's veterinarian. That D.I. water would not help her kidney failure. I asked "why, it has less bad stuff in it" "to clog" her kidneys. He said yes it is more pure than tap water. He went on to say that D.I. water is so pure that it strips bad things from the body, almost like a magnet, and carries it to the kidneys where they, the bad things, collect it in higher amounts. He went on to say that if you send too much bad stuff to the kidneys they fail, where as if a smaller amount of bad stuff is throughout the body it poses less risk.

Keith childs
Painter - Seattle Wa U.S.A.

I was working on a chemical neutralization system and was using de-ionized water as a neutral buffer. It was a hot day and I did not want to go to the store so I drank some. I would up very ill and had to get intravenous drip to rehydrate myself. I drank approximately one gallon. I do not recommend it!

John McPherson
- Tucson,AZ

Observation, The information presented seems to indicate:
1. D.I. water is good for drinking.
2. D.I. water is easily contaminated (bacteria, etc.)
3. D.I. water when exposed to anything, is no longer D.I. water.

Am I missing something?

Kenneth E. Robertson
instrument service - Ontario, California, USA

I have read half of what people are saying about deionize water and its relationshop to distill water. It is my understand that deionize water is a process of reverse osmosis. If this is true, them reverse osmosis removes ALL chemicals from the water and ALL the minerial too. Distill water is no different except how it is done [usually boil the water into steam, then recondensing it, back into liquid. Now in my 850 hours of research the best tasting water that would have to be ALKALINE WATER, a machine attached to your tap water from you kitchen faucet, filtered then ELECTROLYSISED will produce ALKALINE WATER. In testing the pH value of ALKALINE WATER, should give you a range between 8.0 to 9.5, which is safe to drink, anything strong has the ability to remove lots of grease. I personally wouldn't drink very strong alkaline water. Now test the water to see its potential to reduce oxidation, the process is read by a ORP or oxidant reduction potential meter. If it reads a NEGATIVE NUMBER READING then has the ability or power to slow the oxidation or aging process down tremendously, it wouldn't STOP AGING, but slow it down a lot. This is the type of water you can drink safely. Talking about making coffee or tea. ALKALINE WATER will make the best tasting coffee [and use 1/3 coffee] to do so, while tea, it can make tea WITHOUT boiling the water! Go on line and do your own research. I found a ALKALINE machine, which after doing 400 hours of research I purchase the machine from a company with whom I am completely satisfied. It cost me a pretty penny but it is consistantly great and it has given my any problems. I can't wait to see if it will last 15-years. Reverse Osmosis is referred to as "Dead Water" because it has no value to the body, the same as Distill Water.

DJ Heart
- Honolulu, Hawaii

Hi, DJ. I guess you should have read the other half of the letters :-)

... because there are a few errors in your posting.

In your 850 hours of research on "ALKALINE WATER", did you see:

www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html

You and the other readers will find it interesting.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

Let's not forget that the level of De-Ionization will have different effects on electrolyte depletion in the human body.

In Semiconductor processing fabs the DI water, typically recirculated to maintain 18 Mohm, would cause depletion very quickly.

However, in testing applications and places where the water is carried in SS or other metals it would be less serious as the water begins to approach normal water levels of Ionization (up in to the micro siemens), as it picks up Ions from the piping and fixtures.

I guarantee, that if you had a drink from my recirculating 18 Meg Ohm DI system, you'd be a very sick person at the end of the day.

Mark Simpson
- Madison, WI

Hey Ted, Joseph here, glad to see this open forum and I hope the full content of my response will be posted.

First I am sincerely asking what I believe are 2 REAL questions and I would appreciate an easily understandable reply for those of us who have a less scientific background.

After my question I will respond to the site redirection,
www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html

*********************
QUESTION #1:
How would Lead or other dissolved substances get back out of the De-ionized water and therefore leach back into a human body, wouldn't the water simply hold onto the dissolved substances, or is this related to the amount of substance dissolved in the water ?

De-ionized water is described as "Empty" or "Aggressive" or has an affinity for corroding some metals and absorbing or dissolving some metals into itself, so as water gets closer to " PURE H20 " its attraction for other substances increases, hence the " Universal Solvent " title.

QUESTION #2: Is there a scientific term and/or measurable value for the attraction characteristics of " PURE H2O " ?

Example: How well a material conducts heat is Thermal Conductivity.


***********************************************************
This my response to the site: www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html

I was curious to read some of the content once I got to the site.
The person who has written the site you suggest visiting, has the utmost scientific arrogance and enjoys flaunting his personal intellectual supremacy as well.
NOT IMPRESSED WITH HIS INTELLECTUAL BULLYING !

HE DISMISSES ALL PRODUCTS WITH HIS OWN PERSONAL SELECTION OF SCIENTIFIC TERMS WITHOUT EVER TRYING ANY OF THE THINGS THAT HE IS CRITICIZING, basically he is ALL TALK !
The very structure of his forum depicts ANY product described within it as bogus, seems quite unfair.

I DO AGREE ON THIS POINT: IT IS WRONG to outright proclaim that a product or substance has certain benefits without:
# 1 proving those benefits somehow or
# 2 allowing some kind of verbal or personal access to those persons who have received any benefits.

I have personally tried Cell Food and also have some familiarity with the cleaning properties of reverse osmosis water, I DO NOT SELL EITHER.

I am interested in gaining a more masterful grasp of how the physical universe works without overly crying about how certain things seem to defy the Observed "Laws" of science.

Sincerely,

Joseph Polverino
- Orlando, Florida, United States

Hi, Joseph. This thread is a technical discussion of whether DI water is safe to drink. But then people started posting stuff that doesn't quite belong. My reference to www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html was intended to be a direction where readers could go if they wanted to continue in the direction of "magic" waters and "bond angles" and so on, because it has nothing to do with what we are discussing here. Our site is a "no registration required forum" which is great for technical discussions of generic issues, but pretty worthless for "testimonials" because it is not possible to determine whether posters have vested interests in their claims, and whether they are shills using fictitious names while pretending to be satisfied customers, etc.

So we don't discuss those kind of claims on this site. Thanks for your understanding.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. 
finishing.com
Brick, New Jersey

There seems to be a lot of conflicting information as to whether or not DI water is fit for human consumption. Some of this stems from the terms that are being thrown around by a couple of posters. RO (reverse osmosis) water is not the same as DI (deionized) water. These terms are not interchangeable. An RO system typically is less "pure" than DI water and in many instances RO filters are used as prefilters to a DI unit.

Mark Winkler
- St. Louis, MO, USA

I want to post a question on a different subject.

 

I want to answer or follow-up on this question (in non-commercial fashion).

 

This letter is within a monitored forum, very much "alive" here in 2008. If you spot any broken links or obsolete info, please advise!