Archive for March, 2010
How To Build A Water Filter
Why do you need a water filter?
If you are concerned about the water you are drinking but consider it is too expensive to do anything about it, think again. Making your own water filtration system at home is very simple and inexpensive. Even if you are not the handiest person in the world building a water filter is very easy. You can buy equipment to assemble one or simply build by yourself with stuff you can find in almost every house. Each way the essential parts and components are the same. Because making one from common stuff is a little bit more complicated I am going to show you the steps of what you need to do. By keep reading below you will find out how to build a suitable water filter for your home.
How to build a water filter
You will need a 20 litter can, a trash can, a bucket and a washtub or a container. With a little hammer and a nail not bigger than a pencil, make some holes in the bottom of the can, punch the holes from the bottom up into the can. Make the holes around the center in a ring or a circle. Wad up some coat hangers, lots of them. Place a few clothes in the bucket base and the coat hangers on top of them. Otherwise you can just use some silverware, enough for 10 people like knives, forks, or spoons. You are creating an empty space. Then place a small towel with the edges hanging out over the sides of the bucket.
Place a few shovels of dirt inside the bucket and spread it out in even parts, then a few more until it is eight inches deep in the bucket. Place the towel ends into the bucket, and soft out the wrinkles.
Then put a few more clothes on top of the waded towel. Spill the contaminated water in slowly and let it soak down through your filter creation. Put your custom made water filter in another larger can or bucket, standing on some glasses or a couple of food cans or bricks to hold it up. Once every 100 liters of contaminated water you will need to change the soil. And there you go, now you have a custom made water filter.
Toxic Metals in Water
About metals
Metals can be found in many chemical and physical forms. These so called metals can be particles or simple organic compounds, organic complexes or colloids. The dominating type is determined to a huge extent by the chemical composition of the water called the matrix and in particular the pH.
Metals are elements which can be found in chemical compounds as positive ions and in the form of cat-ions in solution. Metals with a density over 5 kilograms / dm3 are well known as heavy metals.
Heavy metals are placed outside the category of environmental toxins materials which, can harm the natural environment even at low concentration. It is true that human body and many other organisms need trace amounts of metals to survive.
Toxic metals in water
The entire concentration of a specific heavy metal is often a poor measurement of the metal’s level of toxicity. Labile metals, is the sum of free metal ions and metal that can easily disassociate from complexes or colloids. These types of metal species are frequently available for biological systems.
The labile metal form is usually the most toxic metal you can find in water. Aluminum for instance is toxic for the fish in the water.
There are not only toxic metals in water, the natural concentration of metals in fresh water varies dependent upon the metal concentration in the soil and the underlying geological structures, the acidity of the water, its humus content and particulate substance concentration.
Toxic metals in water can be separated into two groups from the point of view of health. There are metals with an unpleasant effect like Iron and metals’ giving a very toxic effect as Lead is. Heavy metals have a predisposition to gather in the human body and can result in chronic damage. One example of a toxic metal in water is cadmium, which can accumulate in the liver and kidneys.