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Residential and Commercial Water Softening Home water softening is a colossally large market. Water hardness is usually associated with calcium, magnesium, carbonate species (including bicarbonate and carbonate ions), and sulfate ions dissolved in the water. Calcium and magnesium ions interact with soaps and detergents, create scum, and foul or retard the proper action of such substances. To allay the chemical problems associated with calcium hardness and total hardness, a colossal home water softening business has arisen in the United States. The essence of such business is to substitute sodium ions from rock salt (sodium chloride) contained in the water softener tank for the calcium and magnesium ions that are dissolved in the incoming municipal water. The resulting sodium-rich, "softened" water does not have the problem of fouling or scumming in the presence of soap, and it therefore can be effectively used for showering, cleansing, dishwashing, and clothes washing. Therein lies the benefit of water softening. However, by design, water softeners put huge quantities of sodium into water that formerly contained calcium and magnesium. It is known that sodium can be injurious to human and animal health, more so than has been previously believed. A large fraction of the population is being told to substantially reduce sodium intake, and this substantially devalues the traditional home water softening business. In fact, it may eliminate it from consideration altogether. It stands to reason in the modern world that when you substitute one ion for another, someone is going to find something wrong with the new ion! (Regulators and health professionals always question "new" ions, as they should.) The only solution in the modern world is to take out all the ions. Reticle Carbon CDI cells are ideal for the water softening market. Reticle does not substitute one ion for another as traditional water softening does. It does not substitute sodium for calcium for example. Rather, Reticle Carbon CDI removes the offending calcium, magnesium, sulfate, and carbonate ions directly and permanently and does not replace them with anything. Reticle takes ALL ions out of the water. Reticle Carbon regeneration water will create a more concentrated solution of calcium, magnesium, carbonate, and sulfate ions, but those can be safely discarded directly into the residential drain and thereby into the sewer system. These ions that cause water hardness are not restricted from sewer disposal (and they will probably never be so restricted in the concentrations anticipated to be produced from small scale Reticle Carbon CDI units.) Reticle Carbon CDI water softening has one other very attractive advantage as well if used in tandem with an onsite bladder storage tank. It can be substantially undersized relative to peak household or business need. (A water softener cannot be undersized; it must accommodate the peak flow rate.) Therefore, the Reticle Carbon CDI can be operated at relatively high capacity factor (i.e., relatively continuously) while the high quality residential or commercial water need can vary hourly across the day. This allows an undersized, underpowered unit to be installed, implying a very low capital and operating cost and a high equipment utilization factor. It also allows several parallel undersized units to be installed, meaning the reliability will be literally 100 percent because of parallelism and redundancy. Parallelism and redundancy are highly desirable features because they guarantee literally 100 percent onstream factor and 100 percent utility and utilization of all purchased equipment. Many of the home filtration units on the market today lack all redundancy. They lie in series in the inbound water stream. |
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