Being in the water treatment business, I drink bottled water only when travelling, for convenience. Water from the tap (in developed countries, anyway) is more highly regulated, better tested, and generally of better quality than bottled water. Bottled water does not receive the scrutiny that your tap water does.
Finally, something I know about on/.!
There are many types of contaminants in wastewater, both organic and inorganic. Certain of both types are sufficiently volatile to appear in distilled water. For example, boron is one inorganic material that will appear in distilled water produced from seawater.
Presently the US EPA regulates over 120 organic materials that are found in water and wastewater supplies, and is watching several hundred others. Many of these, particularly solvents, are volatile and can be found at higher concentrations in distilled water than in the source water.
That's why NewWater doesn't use distillation - it uses reverse osmosis (RO). RO removes most inorganic materials and does a pretty good job on most organics, although some will get through it as well. So, NewWater does even more!
The ZeeWeed membrane mentioned is not RO - it's an ultrafilter that removes particles above say 0.04 micrometers. That includes pretty much all bacteria and most viruses - say 6 logs (99.9999%) for the bacteria and 2 logs for viruses. The RO then removes most of the remaining viruses along with dissolved substances. Then, the water goes through carbon adsorbers to remove the organics that RO didn't get. Finally, the water is disinfected with ozone, that cleans up pretty much anything that might be left. What you end up with is some of the purest water on the planet- better than that stuff from Greenland.
While I didn't work on NewWAter, I did get to work on a similar project in San Diego. It died because a state politician needed to get reelected, and decided that the recycled water would tend to go to poor people more than rich people. That treatment process would theoretically remove 29 logs (that's 99.99....9%, with 29 "9"s) of pathogens.
Bottom line, we know how to clean water up very, very well.
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Being in the water treatment business, I drink bottled water only when travelling, for convenience. Water from the tap (in developed countries, anyway) is more highly regulated, better tested, and generally of better quality than bottled water. Bottled water does not receive the scrutiny that your tap water does.
Finally, something I know about on /.!
There are many types of contaminants in wastewater, both organic and inorganic. Certain of both types are sufficiently volatile to appear in distilled water. For example, boron is one inorganic material that will appear in distilled water produced from seawater.
Presently the US EPA regulates over 120 organic materials that are found in water and wastewater supplies, and is watching several hundred others. Many of these, particularly solvents, are volatile and can be found at higher concentrations in distilled water than in the source water.
That's why NewWater doesn't use distillation - it uses reverse osmosis (RO). RO removes most inorganic materials and does a pretty good job on most organics, although some will get through it as well. So, NewWater does even more!
The ZeeWeed membrane mentioned is not RO - it's an ultrafilter that removes particles above say 0.04 micrometers. That includes pretty much all bacteria and most viruses - say 6 logs (99.9999%) for the bacteria and 2 logs for viruses. The RO then removes most of the remaining viruses along with dissolved substances. Then, the water goes through carbon adsorbers to remove the organics that RO didn't get. Finally, the water is disinfected with ozone, that cleans up pretty much anything that might be left. What you end up with is some of the purest water on the planet- better than that stuff from Greenland.
While I didn't work on NewWAter, I did get to work on a similar project in San Diego. It died because a state politician needed to get reelected, and decided that the recycled water would tend to go to poor people more than rich people. That treatment process would theoretically remove 29 logs (that's 99.99....9%, with 29 "9"s) of pathogens.
Bottom line, we know how to clean water up very, very well.