How To Remove Fluoride From Water Cheaply
Water is one of the most essential sources of our life. It is important that we all get clear and healthy water for basic human health.
During the old days, when people used to drink water from the groundwater or Springwater they would survive easily. But in the modern era, where we face floods and pollutants every year, it is hard to keep the water safer and drinkable.
Naturally, groundwater is healthy but it gets contaminated after starting to mix with various things in the soil.
For example, dirt, chemicals, waste, excess iron, etc.
These elements not only reduce the quality of drinking water but after consumption, can cause serious illness. Therefore, the adjustment of these chemicals especially in drinking water is very important to improve human health.
The Cheapest Way To Remove Fluoride From Water
Talking about harmful chemicals and substances, Florine is one of the most chemically active and strong oxidants.
Most of the salts of fluorine are considered toxic, one of which is sodium fluoride and it is commonly used in different kinds of toothpaste.
Also, excessive fluoride concentrations are observed in many underdeveloped and developed countries. If you use fluoride more than the standard level in drinking water, it can severely result in health hazards.
Every year, people use different types of technologies to remove fluoride from the drinking water but none of them has been able to solve the problem yet.
Even with modern technologies, there are many limitations that come in the way of fluoride removal.
But how does one decide which treatment process or method is suitable for them? Well, it depends largely on the location, a specific site, and local needs.
Now, talking about fluoride, on the one hand, because of its benefits in terms of dental issues it seems to be added in drinking water or even daily usable products like toothpaste.
On the other hand, it is also considered a harmful substance as it can literally cause problems like hip fractures and brittle bones.
Fluoride is a contaminant that can remain in the soil, plants, and even in your body.
Therefore, it is very much important that fluoride gets removed from the water that you intake daily.
There are many different technologies that can be used to reduce the fluoride level in the water.
No matter which technology you use, they all come with some kind of advantages and disadvantages that limit their use.
Some of them are coagulation-sedimentation, ion exchange electro-coagulation, an electrochemical process, membrane filtration, and absorption.
Why Should We Remove Fluoride from the Water?
As we all know that chemical composition of the surface is one of the prime factors on which the suitability of water for domestic, industrial, or agricultural purposes depends.
Fluoride in drinking water shows many disadvantages.
One of the most dangerous disadvantages it shows is that it creates a major problem in the safe drinking water supply.
Even in terms of the periodic table, Fluoride is one of the most electronegative and reactive amongst all the elements.
Because of its dental qualities, Fluoride is only beneficial depending on its concentrations. If you use large amounts of fluoride in drinking water, it can cause dental fluorosis or skeletal fluorosis.
Crippling skeletal fluorosis is a significant cause of morbidity in several regions of the world. In countries like India, there are specific standards for fluoride concentrations in drinking water.
According to these standards, fluoride concentration of 1.0 mg/L and an allowable fluoride concentration of 1.5 mg/L in portable waters.
Most of the wells and boreholes provide drinking water and the prevalence of dental fluorosis in the most affected areas is observed to be very high.
In many countries like India, Pakistan, China, Southern Africa, etc., high groundwater fluoride concentrations that are connected with igneous and metamorphic rocks, for example, granites and gneisses have been noticed.
Another disadvantage that comes with Fluoride in the drinking water is the Fluoride removal process itself!
First of all, there is rarely any process that comes with no limitations.
Secondly, stating these processes on a large scale is not an easy task as it is not predictable to arrive at an accurate or reliable estimate of the number of people at risk.
Another disadvantage that comes with Fluoride in the drinking water is the Fluoride removal process itself!
First of all, there is rarely any process that comes with no limitations.
Secondly, stating these processes on a large scale is not an easy task as it is not predictable to arrive at an accurate or reliable estimate of the number of people at risk.
In hot climates, the much higher consumption of water will also increase the intake and this is frequently highly significant.
Also, looking at the consumption of brick tea, the cooking and drying of food with high fluoride coal, Fluoride exposure is considerably higher in many areas of many countries.
The disadvantages of Fluoride can go on and on. It is a simple fact that the more the consumption of Fluoride-contained drinking water the more harmful effects we will face.
That is why, especially in terms of drinking water, the fluoride removal process is extremely important and mandatory.
How to Remove Fluoride from the Water Cheaply
To remove Fluoride from drinking water and overcome its hazardous impact, different approaches for defluoridation do exist. Some of the most suggested defluoridation techniques are precipitation, membrane separation methods, adsorption techniques, ion exchange, or electrochemical / electro-dialysis.
As earlier mentioned, no one approach is suitable for all types, hence you will have to choose the one that is friendly according to your environment.
Similarly, all these methods have their advantages, disadvantages, and limitations. They all work and show ideal results for fluoridation according to their productivity.
Water fluoridation is not an easy task and that is why it remains most cost-effective and equitable.
By looking at the general population with polluted water, tendencies toward purchasing bottled water and filtration systems are high.
This also raises challenges to the maintenance and expansion of water fluoridation programs. But now there are some methods that can be performed at the domestic level.
These domestic water treatment systems include water conditioners, water softeners, and water filters. But that is not all. These filtration systems also fall into some categories.
1. Point of entry
Point of entry water treatment system is used to treat all of the water that is entering the home. And, point of use: this water treatment is used at one faucet to treat the water that you mainly use in the distribution system.
2. Carbon Filtration Systems
This is a method that often resembles a water pitcher or large jug and uses activated charcoal as the filtering medium. As gravity pulls the water through the activated carbon filter it removes chlorine, lead, and mercury. It also removes pesticides.
3. Reverse Osmosis System
These systems use pressure to force molecules first, through a microscopic membrane or screen. Then after going through the cellophane membrane, it screens out even smaller pollutants from the drinking water.
4. Water Distillation
This is a process that removes contaminants from the drinking water by heating the water to its boiling point and trapping the rising steam. It uses some cooling device to condense the vapor back to its original form.
5. Water Softener
This is one of the most popular methods. It reduces the amount of hardness in the water by using cation-exchange resin that was regenerated with sodium/potassium chloride. However, the ability to reduce fluoride levels varies in its effectiveness to reduce fluoride.
6. Shrimp Shell Waste as a Cheap Biosorbant
Adsorption of Fluoride is considered the most effective treatment method for fluoride removal from aqueous solutions. Biosorption advantages over conventional treatment methods include low cost, high efficiency, less sludge production, and regeneration of biosorbent. You can find the proper process of this method in any research on the internet. Shrimp shell waste can be used as an environmentally friendly, effective, and cheap adsorbent for the removal of Fluoride.
7. Tulsi / Basil leaves
This method is one of the cheapest methods to remove Fluoride from drinking water. This is also an environmentally friendly method that can supply clean and healthy water to the poorest people. Researchers have found that Tulsi can reduce the amount of fluoride in drinking water significantly. This method is safe and readily available for everybody and mainly those who cannot afford modern technologies.
8. Tea ash
One more cheap, safe, and environment-friendly technique for the removal of fluoride in water is nothing but Tea Ash! This process increases defluoridation capacity with each increasing adsorbent dose and contact time but decreases with an initial concentration of fluoride solution. Do follow proper research before applying methods with proper knowledge.
9. Electro-Coagulation
Electro-coagulation is a technique for applying direct current to sacrificial electrodes that are submerged in an aqueous solution. Electrocoagulation is a very straightforward and efficient method that uses electro-oxidation. In this method, the treatment is performed without including any chemical coagulant. Again, before applying this fluoride removal technique, do follow the proper process and do good research.
10. Drum stick
Moringa Oleifera or what we often call drumstick is one more bio-sorbent that can be used for the removal of fluoride from water. Drum stick is one of the natural coagulants and also an edible substance in nature. The most important property of drum sticks is their antibacterial activity against antibacterial strains. In this method, drum sticks collected from various areas are dried and seeds are removed and sieved through a 6k micrometer stainless steel sieve. The whole technique includes various processes but once the method is done completely, you can detect fluoride removal efficiency with the help of a spectrophotometer.
FAQ
1. How much does it cost to remove Fluoride from drinking water?
There is no one price that can be set for all water filtration techniques. Whether you are using a modern method or an old or natural method, the effective cost will depend on both the amount of water and the size of the filtration unit.
For an assumption in terms of modern methods like distillation, you can consider the cost between $100-$200.
2. What is the best way to remove fluoride from water?
After a little costlier water filtration systems like reverse osmosis, ion exchange, and distillation systems you can always choose some cheaper, natural, and environment-friendly options like Tulsi, also called holy basil, Tamarind seed, Drum stick, or Tea ash.
3. Is Fluoridated water safe to drink?
Yes. Element Fluoride is itself a very dangerous and high risk. As we have seen earlier, the overdose of Fluoride can cause fluorosis.
Health-related changes that occur because of excess Fluoride may appear non-noticeable at the beginning but it can cause severe illness later. For example, hardly noticeable white spots in tooth enamel to staining and pitting.
Conclusion
The nature of drinking water is a major task in modern days because of expansion in pollution of water. In addition to that, the presence of fluorides in the groundwater and surface water is very much injurious to health.
Fluoride is one such pollutant that undermines living life forms, specifically people. It enters an aqueous environment by weathering fluoride-rich minerals.
Even if you go to adopt one specific fluoride removal method it comes with tons of advantages and limitations.
The best way to bypass this issue is defluoridation. But as we know, these processes are very costly in the market. That is why it is always beneficial to choose the method where natural bio-sorbents are being used with huge interest.
Most of the natural methods have a fluoride removal efficiency of 90%. The only discomfort you might face with bio-sorbents is they remain in the system.
There are also technology-friendly processes that might cost you a bit but can do the work efficiently.
For example, the results have shown that the use of water filtration systems using Reverse Osmosis and other technologies also has the ability to significantly lower fluoride levels of drinking water.
These techniques and many more have been utilized for the removal of fluoride from drinking water.
