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Softening
• The term hardness is used to characterize a water that does not
lather well, causes a scum in the bath tub, and leaves hard, white,
crusty deposits (scale) on coffee pots, tea kettles, and hot water
heaters. The failure to lather well and the formation of scum on bath
tubs is the result of the reactions of calcium and magnesium with
the soap.
• As a result of this complexation reaction, soap cannot interact with
the dirt on clothing, and the calcium-soap complex itself forms
undesirable precipitates.
• Hardness is defined as the sum of all polyvalent cations (in
consistent units). The common units of expression are mg/L as
CaCO 3 or milliequivalents per liter (meq/L).
Softening
• Carbonate hardness is defined as the amount of
hardness equal to the total hardness or the total alkalinity,
whichever is less. Carbonate hardness is often called
temporary hardness because boiling the water removes
it.
• Noncarbonate hardness is defined as the total hardness
in excess of the alkalinity. If the alkalinity is equal to or
greater than the total hardness, then there is no
noncarbonate hardness. Noncarbonate hardness is called
permanent hardness because it is not removed when
water is heated.
SOFTENING
• The removal of ions that cause hardness is called
softening. The majority of treatment systems that employ
softening are those using a groundwater source. There
are, however, a number of surface water sources with a
groundwater component that is hard that employ softening
as part of their treatment process. Softening can be
accomplished by the lime-soda process, ion exchange,
nanofiltration, or reverse osmosis.
Delineation of Membrane Processes
• Reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), and electrodialysis
are membrane processes that use the differences in permeability
of water constituents as a separation technique. The membrane is a
synthetic material that is semipermeable; that is, it is highly
permeable to some constituents and less permeable to others. To
remove a constituent from the water, the water is pumped against
the surface of a membrane resulting in a separation of product and
waste streams.
• Four types of pressure driven membranes are generally recognized:
microfiltration (MF),
• ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO).
The hierarchy of the processes is identified by the types of materials
rejected, operating pressures, and nominal pore sizes on an order-
of-magnitude basis.
REVERSE OSMOSIS
For extended durations without public water supply, advisories should also
include instructions to bury fecal waste and to wash hands in disinfected or
boiled water. Epidemics that follow natural disasters often claim more lives
than the disaster because these simple measures are not implemented