How do you Remove Radionuclides from Water?
Could the Berkeley team inform us of effective ways to remove Radionuclides from water, either rain water or tap water?
In another post Joseph stated that boiling water DOES NOT work.
I heard that Reverse Osmosis works, and what about Distilled water, are these effective processes to clean the water of radionuclides? Are there other easy methods that are effective?
Thanks,
JFP
RO
I Agree from the statement, that RO may removes tne Radionuclides, but it needs some special membrane, I guess. Is there any second opinion?
The Environmental Working
The Environmental Working Group has analyzed water filters, etc.
http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/getawaterfilter
Tepco to use chemical to bind radioactivity in water
http://de.news.yahoo.com/2/20110416/tts-tepco-will-meeresverseuchung-mit...
check this article, you can translate it in English. it speaks of Tepco wanting to use chemical to bind radioactivity
Black Berkey
Get yourself a Black Berkey-based water purification system. Ignore the "not available in California" BS - there are retailers who will ship to you.
Got A Black Berkey some time
Got A Black Berkey some time ago for emergencies and am now thinking about getting one of these "radiation filters" for under my kitchen sink.
Also, after reading the book Living Water, I'm researching which vortexing unit to put in after the filter. After heavy filtering, water can taste pretty dead and the vortexing/structuring makes it taste wonderful.
Sorry, radiation filters I
Sorry, radiation filters I found are at friendsofwater.com
Would appreciate it if anyone has thoughts on whether it would be good or not.
i went with the multipures
i went with the multipures reverse osmosis with charcol block/.
RO wont work for I131
and activated carbon wont work for Cessium or Strontium. Also, if you were in fact worried about it, you would have to filter out your shower water as well and carbon filters don't work for that since hot water makes them ineffective for iodine adsorption. You would need to install a whole house carbon filter to take out the I131. But again, as Joseph pointed out, the levels are pretty low and might not justify the expense right now ... but since we're seeing some odd spikes and no end in site for the release of I-131 from Fuk, it might be a worthwhile investment. If nothing else, at least you get the chlorine out of the water as well.
Not even remotely
This is a junior high school level discussion. Perhaps, non-technical readers should stick to asking questions. So, if high school chemistry was a mystery to you, then it will be obvious to us. You cannot 'wing it' in technical discussions.
Iodine, whether radioactive or stable, in water is in an IONIC solution, like aqeous (potassium/calcium or sodium) iodide. It is not a gaseous vapor. It is not in elemental form. Radioactive iodine is very easy to remove from water.
All consumer grade RO units have a particulate filter, then a carbon filter and then the RO membrane. Thus radioactive iodine is removed from water, by consumer grade RO units.
that's not exactly true,
that's not exactly true, carbon filters will filter out some of the radioactive particles.
Nescience
Nescience is short for NO SCIENCE
The particulate pre-filter, removes the big chunks (down to 5 microns).
The activated charcoal filter absorbs the chemical impurities.
Most of the pre-filtered water (~75%) then goes down the drain.
Only about 25% of the pre-filtered water will (drip) through the RO Membrane. Virtually NO large cations,radioactive or stable, are getting through a functional, consumer grade, RO unit, into the product water.
(The word virtually, means that a mass spectrometer can detect most anything, anywhere.)
Joseph, It would be
Joseph,
It would be interesting for the Brawm team to take a sample that has Iodine 131 in it and pass it trough a brita water filter. Do a test before and after to see if the filter helps. This would be an interesting experiment.
Agreed wholeheartedly...
...This WOULD be an excellent "experiment", but I'm not sure the BRAWM folks need any more on their plate, at the moment.
I'm sure you Berkeley guys are already working on this, but putting together some sort of ad hoc consortium of different universities' science labs all over the country, using what you have begun as a model, to perform all manner of tests and double-blind peer reviewing, would be a fantastic idea, to not only supplement the federal Government's obviously already-strained-to-breaking abilities in this crisis, but also to make available area-specific testing results to state and local authorities, and, naturally, to ensure that EPA's and FDA's data and assertions are actually on the up-and-up.
Not sure how many comparable departments and scientifically minded research institutions / working groups there are in this country, but I would have to assume that there are a LOT of highly educated, brilliant folks out there with appropriate laboratory equipment, resources and a fairly eager stable of young students who would leap at the chance to prove themselves and get a jump on their careers / professional responsibilities.
Like I said -- I'm sure you've already thought of this and "reached out". This just occurred to me, so I thought I'd mention it. Apologies if I'm wasting your precious time.
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
972-746-8575
Filtering radionuclids - I-131
This blog post on Forbes discusses the chemistry of filtering out I-131 from water. It says that reverse osmosis is unlikely to remove gases and says I-131 is suspended as a gas in water. http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffmcmahon/2011/04/07/how-to-remove-radioactive....
From the post, I gather that carbon filters would be the best first line of defense, but I would be interested to hear more from chemists or physicists.
Not true
The boiling point of elemental iodine and ionic iodine are well above the boiling point of water. See comment above about technical literacy. The iodine is not gaseous. Carbon prefilters remove it. The RO membrane removes it.
Trying to be gentle about this. Everybody is ignorant about something. So if high school chemistry 1 was a stretch, then quantum physics is just not where your talents are located.
Do what you are good at and enjoy. Ask a friendly nerd, genius or A-student and then believe their answers. You cannot grasp the basics.
Have a nice, day. Just don't try to 'wing it' with technical subjects. Somebody, somewhere might think you have a clue; and that might be dangerous for them.
Who wrote the article that you are linking to?
The article you posted a link for says at the end:
"Disclosure: I have a brother who sells air and water purification equipment."
Yeah...
I picked up a Zero Water filtration decanter today, and also a Pur filter system for our kitchen sink. That's about all I can do at the moment, and try to get everyone in my house to drink vapor-distilled, reverse-osmosis or spring-sourced bottled water.
I am still looking for a new filter for the refrigerator, which is almost twelve years old, so... Yeah, right, good luck with that, I guess.
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
972-746-8575
What Pur filter did you get?
What Pur filter did you get? Was it easy to install?
Water filtration-a great idea for many reasons!
A retired worker from a chemical plant that would test and receive waste water from Lawrence Livermore Lab reinforced what I already suspected about tap water, besides it tasting and smelling like crap. Sometimes he would deny as happened once for water detected to have unacceptable levels of radioactivity, in that case, the stupid trucker who brought it in one time scooped up a cup of it, drank it and offered the refusing inspector some as a way to prove it was not 'hot.' The trucker died not unsurprisingly 4 or 5 years later of esophageal and stomach cancer.
All city water once it leaves the plant has to travel through miles of pipe leaving open the possibility of collected impurities at the tap-stuff like heavy metals from old soldering, lead, even pesticides and industrial chemicals that it can pick up on it's sinuous path to your tap. When I lived in Martinez, CA the apartment complex we lived in had all the OLD asbestos lined pipes leading up to it since it was built in 1964. Simply leaving a jar of water out overnight as he encouraged us to do to settle revealed sediment the color of cadmium along with a gray silt like material approximately 1/8" thick so filtering is a wise thing to do-lessens toxic load on your kidneys and body overall. The other benefits, besides slightly lowering radionuclides, filtering out 'bad bugs' such as giardia and amoebas are for beverage making and cooking-flavors are more 'true,' bitterness in coffee and teas is eliminated and gone forever is any 'off' taste or smell of chlorine in your food! If you are ever served unfiltered water in a restaurant you will know it immediately and you may even notice unsavory flavors in your food if they are also using straight tap water to cook with.
PS: Bottled spring water really is a joke, it's not filtered and, as with one brand back in the 1990's out of Northern California can contain dangerously high levels of fluoride and just about anything else present that is detectable by assay.
-Off my menu: All Seafoods because the oceans really are a military and industrial sewer! Yes, I will miss Anchovies on my pizza, fishsticks, red snapper, tuna (even 'chicken of the sea' is no longer 'worthy,'crab, fake crab (made with Pollock, an ocean fish), clam chowder, Caviar etc... See: http://pstuph.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/can-ocean-currents-transport-radi...
Reverse Osmosis water filtration
123filter.com has an incredible under counter 5 stage reverse osmosis water filter with 3 12 carbon charcoal filters a hepa filter ad an ro unit. I just ordered it and got in in 2 days the thing is incredible, It takes up underneath my entire sink. I has something you half to pay extra for with other companies, a electric pump. You can see it on amazon or go straight to their site. it think it is 123filters.com... I payed 200 for it. everyone else wanted 500 for the same unit... they also cary carbon shower filters...
Anyone know...
...How the units I purchased (see above) might handle this sort of situation? Did I waste my money? (Still not too late to take it back and exchange for Brita...)
Many thanks,
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
RichardFCromackJr@gmail.com
972-746-8575
Reverse Osmosis
Reverse Osmosis
http://cfpub.epa.gov/safewater/radionuclides/radionuclides.cfm?action=Ra...
Reverse Osmosis can lower alkalinity in product
From the above mentioned URL:
Because reverse osmosis removes contaminants so effectively, it can significantly lower the alkalinity of the product water.
This can cause decreased pH and increased corrosivity of the product water. The product water may need to have corrosion inhibitors added or to have the pH and alkalinity adjusted upwards by the addition of alkalinity. These actions may avoid simultaneous compliance issues in the distribution system such as elevated levels of lead and copper.
Reverse osmosis does not remove gaseous contaminants such as carbon dioxide and radon.
- Have seen many other sources, claim somewhat differently.
found this is this correct ?any comments by brawn welcomed
Can a radioactive iodine in water be removed with the reverse osmotic membrane softeners and purifiers?
Can the softeners and purifiers made by the reverse osmotic membrane method set up in the supermarket etc. remove the radioactive substance?Can the particle of iodine 131 and cesium 137 be removed though the softeners and purifiers of the reverse osmotic membrane filtration method can make seawater a fresh water?
The hole of the filter of the reverse osmotic membrane softeners and purifiers is about 0.0005-micron (0.5nm), and molecules of water are 0.0003 microns about (0.3nm). Therefore, all things that are larger than the molecule of water can be removed.
The grain diameter of a radioactive iodine and the cesium seeming is about 0.01-10 microns in the size. (There is information of about 0.001 microns though it is a particle of submicron of about about generally 0.1?m, too.)
The cesium is a water solubility though the iodine doesn't melt easily to water. Therefore, it is thought that it is possible to filter and to remove the iodine of the radioactivity with the reverse osmotic membrane though the cesium might be impossible.
There is the one called that the size of fine pores of the reverse osmotic membrane is 0.0001 microns (0.1nm), too. When it is this, the molecule of water cannot be passed. The molecule and the atom of the material always vibrate, and the one of such a size cannot measure the size accurately. Apparently, the size of the hole of the reverse osmotic membrane seems to be a value of presumption.
It is not a translation that experiments whether the radioactive substance in water can be removed with the reverse osmotic membrane softeners and purifiers. It doesn't go out of the region of the guess to the last. Self-responsibility of judgment, please.
For the softeners and purifiers of the hollow fiber film method
The hollow fiber film is the one originally developed for the hemodialysis such as kidney machines. The hollow fiber film is a filamentous fiber whose macaroni center is a midair. The pore of the diameter of about 0.1 microns is innumerably open on the surface. In general, because the size of the bacillus is the number of microns one-level, the bacillus can be removed. However, it is thought that the one of some size can be removed though the radioactive substance such as iodines and cesiums cannot be completely removed.
For usual activated carbon type softeners and purifiers
The granular activated carbon is used for usual activated carbon type softeners and purifiers. A detailed hole of 0.5-5 microns has innumerably become empty on the surface of the activated carbon, and the molecule is taken and the smell and dirt have been removed in that.
As for the surface area of the activated carbon of 1g, it becomes about as much as 1000 square meters, and the surface area is very large. A radioactive iodine and the cesium are thought not to be able to remove it so much to some degree though will be able to remove.
Destination of radioactivity material taken into the inside of the body and the influence
The radioactive substance taken into the inside of the body includes cesium 137 etc. to stay in radiation iodine 131 and the muscle that gathers in the thyroid. The radioactive substance collapses in the time passage and the number of radioactivities decreases. It is about 30 years in cesium 137 of about eight days in radioactive iodine 131 the half - life.
Moreover, such a radioactivity material is gradually exhausted from the inside of the body as excreta etc.It is about 100-200 for cesium 137.
The probability of occurrence of the thyroid cancer with radiation iodine 131 that gathers in the thyroid is different in the age at the exposure. It is understood not to increase so much at the age of 40 or more though it increases especially in baby's exposure.
source/
http://as76.net/en/life/rev_sinto.php
RO & Water Wells
The reply above is substantially correct. Countertop RO units have been available for decades. Plug and play. They make enough water for household drinking and cooking. They tend to put about 3-4 times as much water down the drain as the amount purified, but not much total water is involved. That waste water will have concentrated minerals, including radionuclides.
For the most part, water wells are radionuclide free. Most water wells receive their source from miles away, and the water travels only a few feet per year. So, you will not live long enough to receive any Fukushima, Cold War or Chernobyl radiation from the average water well in the USA.