Ultraviolet Water Purifier

An ultraviolet water purifier in simplest terms is a water purifier that uses ultraviolet rays to sterilize the water flowing through a tube. When people think of water purifiers they typically think of water filters that remove chemicals tastes odors, and smells from water. Those have filters operate by passing water through a filter, screen, or membrane which has holes smaller than what they are trying to filter out. An ultraviolet water purifier does not operate the same way, though the two water purifiers are used in combination. What an ultraviolet water purifier does is sterilize the water by radiating the water to kill the contaminants. Ultraviolet light is also called UV light. The water is irradiated with electromagnetic radiation that has a wavelength shorter than visible light but longer than x-rays. It is called UV light because the radiation spectrum of electro-magnetic waves has frequency higher than those we humans call violent, thus ultraviolet.. UV radiation is invisible to the human eye but that does not mean that it is ineffective. We get sunburned from UV rays and we get tanned from UV lights in tanning salons.

Ultraviolet Water Purifier: How It Works

The radiation produced by ultraviolet water purifier is UV-C, also called “germicidal UV” This radiation is much more intense than sunlight, and is in the 254 nanometers spectrum so it can work best with this wavelengths. Generally a ultraviolet water purifier is combined with a water filter of some type to remove chlorine, heavy metals, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and any other chemical impurity. The real strength of an ultraviolet water purifier is that it can get rid of biological contaminants such as bacteria, virus, molds, yeast and single celled organisms too small to be trapped by typical water filters.

Ultraviolet Water Purifier Advantages

An ultraviolet water purifier has many advantages over other types of water purification and treatment. One of these advantages is that it does not introduce new chemicals into the water which then have to be filtered out once they have done their job. It also doesn’t produce any organics or other byproducts. It doesn’t change the taste or acidity or alkalinity or other properties of the water being treated. It doesn’t harm your water pipes and doesn’t create problems for your septic field. An ultraviolet water purifier is also easy to install and maintain.

An ultra violet water purifier uses the UV-C rays emanating from the UV lamp to irradiate water passing through a flow chamber. The irradiation causes the contaminants’ nucleic acid to absorb the UV energy which transforms the DNA structure of the contaminant. Basically, the contaminant is sterilize and unable to re-create itself. The biological side of the ultraviolet water purifier process is handled in this fashion. However other particulate and contaminants need to be removed also. This is done through adding filters such as GAC (granulated activated carbon) which is also called carbon block or carbon filter. Or perhaps ultraviolet irradiation is combined with a reverse osmosis filter which forces water through a membrane so fine that contaminants are screened out and cannot pass through the membrane.

The most important thing to remember is that ultraviolet water purification treats the biological contaminants in the water and the rest of the impurities need to be removed by water filtration means. Another important consideration is that this type of ultraviolet water purifier is a whole house system, not a point of use system such as a faucet or showerhead filter is.