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How Does An Ion Exchange Water Softener Work Ecowater

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63 views

How Does An Ion Exchange Water Softener Work Ecowater

Uploaded by

senthil kumar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How does an ion


exchange water
softener work?

Home ! How Does An Ion Exchange Water Softener


Work?

How does an ion exchange


water softener work?

It is known that only the ion exchange


process truly softens water, by
extracting the minerals that cause lime-
scale from hard water. But how does
that work exactly? Find out below!

The ion exchange process involves the


exchange of the hardness minerals in water,
chiefly calcium and magnesium, for sodium
minerals. The exchange is made possible
because the minerals are ionic in nature,
which means they have an electrical charge.
The ion exchange process is based on the
fact that like charges repel one another and
opposite charges attract.

An ion exchange water softener exchanges


the hardness minerals (calcium and
magnesium) dissolved in water for sodium.
This soft mineral is contained on the
softener resin beads and does not build up
on surfaces as scale deposits.

How ion exchange works

The exchange takes place by passing hard


water over man-made ion exchange resin
beads, in a suitable pressure vessel tank.
The resin in most modern softeners
(polystyrene divinyl benzene) consists of
millions of tiny plastic beads, all of which are
negatively charged exchange sites. The ions
considered in this process (calcium,
magnesium and sodium) are all positivly
charged ions.

When the resin is in the base state,


the negatively charged resin beads hold
positively charged sodium ions. As the
calcium and magnesium contact the resin
beads in their travel through the resin tank,
they displace the sodium ions from the
exchange sites.

What happens next

Ion exchange is possible for two reasons:

1. All positively charged ions do not have


the same strength of positive charge,
and
2. The resin prefers the more strongly
charged calcium and magnesium ions,
rather than the weaker sodium ions.

The displaced sodium ions then pass


through the resin ‘bed’ and out the softener
outlet, thus the softener delivers ‘soft’
water.

Recharge

Eventually all of the resin exchange sites are


occupied by calcium and magnesium and no
further softening exchange can take place.
The resin is said to be exhausted and must
be regenerated.

The resin of the softener is regenerated with


a brine solution. During regeneration the
flow of service water from the softener is
stopped.

Brine is drawn from the brine tank,


mixing water with the salt in the reservoir.
The brine solution flows through the resin,
contacting the resin beads loaded with
calcium and magnesium ions. Even though
the calcium and magnesium are more
strongly charged than the sodium, the
concentrated brine solution contains literally
billions of the more weakly charged sodium
ions.

This way, the sodium ions have the power to


displace the smaller number of calcium and
magnesium ions. When the calcium and
magnesium ions are displaced, the positive
sodium ions are then attracted to the
negatively charged exchange sites on the
resin.

Eventually, all exchange sites are taken up


by sodium ions. The resin is said to be
regenerated and ready for the next
softening cycle.

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dealers via the form below!

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More information

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