deionized vs distilled water?

[nkresho]

How about RO (reverse osmosis) water. Can get it from my local pet shop to be used in fish tanks where you don't want any hardness/softness in your water. Its pretty cheap aswell, £2.50 for 25 litres.

I have always used r/o in my loop.

My r/o filter brings my city tap water from about 400ppm down to about 8ppm. I kept saltwater fish and corals for years and have always purified my own water. It's as good/pure as distilled IMO. Just make sure to ask the fish store to tell you how clean it is. If they need to replace their membrane it won't be all that clean as compared to regular tap (might even be worse as it releases impurities back into the water). They would need a tds (total dissolved solids) meter to check it, it measures in ppm (parts per millionth). Lower is better.

hmm i wonder if natural glaciar water would work.... i can get a gallon of that, my dad is going out to iceland this weekend... how would that go in a system? like straight from glaciar, pure water..

Nope, that has way more minerals in it than other types of water. You would most likely get visible deposits on the insides of your blocks/pump/etc.

[Jon K]

What about water that runs down my grand mothers back in the rain?

Guys - seriously... distilled water. Period.

[iandh]

Deionized and distilled are essentially the same, assuming both are good quality. Sort of different means to the same end.

Distilled water is made via distillation (duh), and Deionized is made via filtration. The end goal of both is to remove particulates from the water. Particulates can be ions ("sticky" atoms missing an electron), neutrally charged atoms, or colliods (neutral charged atomic clusters).

The problem is that when buying store-bought distilled water, you don't really know what you are getting. µS (microsiemens) is a measurement of conductivity. Proper quality distilled water should measure below 2µS. Most DI water will range somewhere between 0.5-5µS depending on the quality level the system is designed to provide.

In general, a high quality distilled water will be purer than average DI water, but this is not always the case. A person I spoke to about a product I am currently working on, said that he personally has measured store bought distilled water as high as 86µS (this is BAD quality distilled water). He contacted the manufacturer of the water and warned them that they were having a problem with their system, and a few weeks later he tested their water @ 25µS. He called once more, and on the next batch the purity was finally down to a reasonable spec of 3µS.

The only way to really guarantee the purity of the water you are using, regardless of what it says on the bottle, is to buy a TDS (total dissolved solids) meter and measure its conductivity yourself. For those of you in school your chem lab may have one you can use.

[Jon K]

Twice distilled water is the way to go

If you guys like water so much you should go here:

http://www.thewaterworksrestaurant.com/main.cfm

I go there from time to time, nothing like sitting down to a $65 bottle of drinking water. Wowaweewah!

Guys - distilled water. Done.

Deionized does cause problems with taking ions from metals and if they're thin enough it can lead to corrosion through the metal.

[Mech0z]

Twice distilled water is the way to go
Guys - distilled water. Done.

Deionized does cause problems with taking ions from metals and if they're thin enough it can lead to corrosion through the metal.

I have tried searching for distilled water here in Denmark and the only thing I could find was Feser One Cooling Fluid at 8$ per liter... unless you have access to something at a school or something its just not accessable here in Denmark and apparently most of Europe.

[Jon K]

Thats very peculiar. You can't walk into your local grocery and get a gallon of distilled? I find that intriguing.

[Tinkco86]

I don't think I am quite grasping this thread right. What I would like to know is if I can go into my grocery store and buy a gallon Poland Springs distilled water and use it in my loop no prob? I will be using PT nuke also.

EDIT: I work at the grocery store and I know it exists there.

[Mech0z]

Thats very peculiar. You can't walk into your local grocery and get a gallon of distilled? I find that intriguing.

I have tried the normal grocery shops, gas stations, the interwebs, DIY retailer and Matas (Sells soaps, vitamins and such stuff) and nowhere can it be found.. they only have Deionized water

[NaeKuh]

The last line basically tells u that the water is distilled.

- Prevents scale buildup and discoloration.

Basically means it has no Carbonate or other minerals for hard water scaling, and it has no chlorine or fluoride for discoloration.

So yes its perfectly safe, might be a bit more expensive because it was fed though a deionizer, but the raw bulk should be okey.

Thats very peculiar. You can't walk into your local grocery and get a gallon of distilled? I find that intriguing.

Not everyone lives in US. Distilled in supermarkets i think is more of a US thing.
As people in EU keep scratching there head on what the heck distilled even means to begin with.

[iandh]

Guys, I think there is some confusion about what de-ionized water actually is.

I explained it in my last post but I will elaborate.


Distilled water is De-ionized water, but De-ionized water is not distilled water.

"Distilled" just refers to the process by which the water is purified.

Good quality De-ionized water has less particulates and free ions than poor quality Distilled water. Good quality distilled water is just as De-ionized as the same quality De-ionized water that was not purified by distillation, but by filtration. Ions are typically removed chemically (by bonding with another chemical such as occurs in a water softener that uses salt pellets), and then the bonded ions that now have formed neutrally charged particulates are filtered out via reverse osmosis and other filtration methods. None of that is required for distilled water, because no ions or colloids travel in the water vapor in a proper distillation system.

Ions are atoms missing an outer electron, so they have a positive charge. Impure water is what can cause trouble, because the ions sometimes can either form a covalent bond with the metals, or they can steal an electron from the metals thereby creating a metal ion. This isn't the rule though. It is all a probability.

Generally what happens is that if your loop has a neutral charge, water will not cause any trouble whether it contains ions or not. If it has a negative charge, whatever ions are present in the coolant will bond to the negatively charged areas and/or steal electrons until equilibrium is reached.

In summary, either ultra-pure distilled or completely De-ionized water are best for your loop, because the ions themselves are what cause the trouble. Pure water by itself is neutrally charged, and your loop will only dump ions into it if the loop has an imbalanced charge.

These processes are also all governed by the pH of the coolant, which is why it is important to try and maintain the most neutral pH possible in your coolant.


Why are there two types of purified water like this? Because in industrial settings, Distilled water can become very costly due to the energy required for the distillation process. De-ionization (filtration) takes much less power, and produces higher volumes of water at a lower cost. Neither is necessarily more pure than the other, it all depends on the quality of the processing.

[Spawn-Inc]

mabyboi, just go get distilled from food basic or walmart, etc. it's a dollar per gallon.

[alacheesu]

I enjoy theoretical debates as much as anyone, but in this case the empirical evidence is pretty clear: deionized water has been used successfully by a large number of people for years.

In many countries, including mine, distilled water is hard to find. That's why our national water cooling forum recommends using deionized water, and a lot of people, including myself, have run deionized for years without any problems. I don't know of one single case where using deionized water has caused any trouble. Maybe there is some really low quality deionized out there that could cause trouble, but I've never heard of it.

[Mabyboi]

alrighty, ill go get distilled water, and mix it with deionized! just to work for both sides of the argument!

... i hope you know im kidding, ill get distilled water.. thanks guys!

[iandh]

The bottom line is, if you buy store bought distilled or cheapo De-Ionized water, you don't really know what you are getting unless you check it for purity. Some store bought distilled water can be really dirty, and same goes for cheapo De-Ionized from auto parts places, etc.

Does it really matter? Probably not. But if one is going to get that involved in the purity of their water, and don't want to fork out $75 for a water tester, the only way to be reasonably sure of EXACTLY what you are getting without measuring it yourself is to buy ASTM graded water from a chemical supplier.

ASTM Type II Laboratory grade (less than 1µS conductivity):

http://www.aaa-chemicals.com/wade1ga.html

[jdcook]

it. I'm tired of doing it half assed. Sure, I could go down to the Wal-Mart (which we don't have in this country though there are Asda's which are owned by Wal-Mart) or any of the other many places that sell distilled water for pennies a gallon. (Though they also don't exist in this country because "this country" is not the US. Which is to say, I don't live in the US. That is, there are other countries. Some of them even have interwebs that have not yet banned XS for subversive influences. And these "countries" -as we like to think of them- that, again, aren't the US are in some ways different than the US. Gas costs $6.50 a gallon. The beer doesn't taste like distilled water. They actually care about socccer. No really. They do.)

What was I talking about? Oh yeah! My half ass! I'm going to *make* water. I will fuse hydrogen and oxygen atoms with my BARE HANDS. Just Hs and Os in the traditional 2:1 ratio. And none of that deuterium heavy water nonsense (it tends to clog the pins in the CPU block). Plus I'll wash my hands first so the water will be completely pure. And then freeze the water so it homeopathically remembers being cold. You wusses and your distilled deionised reverse osomosisised so-called water will hang your heads in shame before the superiour cooling properties of my custom modded water.

Or maybe I'll just use sweetened condensed milk. Mmmmm. Banoffee radiator.

[Extigy]

This topic seems to spring up every other month. Can we please sticky this..

Good quality deionised is FINE. any one who says anything different is very misinformed. If deionised was impure, they would not use it in the pharmacuitical and food industries.

Distilled water of the same quality is JUST as good.

In summery - you can use distilled OR ionised, whatever you can get your hands on will do just fine!

If you stil confused, JUST BUY PRE MIXED FLUIDS. I have used feser orange pre mix for over a year now, no problems, my brother has used both the BLUE and RED premix with no issues either.

[Mabyboi]

yeah, just sticky this thread so its available to all to see XD

[Tripiton]

In summery - you can use distilled OR ionised, whatever you can get your hands on will do just fine!

... and if you have installed any mod with pneumatic accesories, you can try to install something like this:

http://www.smcpneumatics.ie/media/IZ..._je%281%29.pdf

I have used this one and another bigger models for industrial apps and works fine (I design industrial machines). Once I imagine how to use it on a pc but not to deionize water... the reason was to avoid seeing these huge mounds of dust in my case

PD: don´t ask me about the price of the toy

[NaeKuh]

The bottom line is, if you buy store bought distilled or cheapo De-Ionized water, you don't really know what you are getting unless you check it for purity. Some store bought distilled water can be really dirty, and same goes for cheapo De-Ionized from auto parts places, etc.

Iandh read my post...

that thing is distilled..

as i said it prevents scaling.. minerals in water causes scaling, so its mineral free.

It doesnt color... its chlorine or floride that causes discolor, so its in absense, so that water should be as close to distilled.

When people deionize, some type of filtration is used. Most cases its gonna be a distilled + RO if the water is priced high. Deionized will add more to the tag.

But im within 99.999% sure that the water he bought is good for his system.

[iandh]

Iandh read my post...

that thing is distilled..

as i said it prevents scaling.. minerals in water causes scaling, so its mineral free.

It doesnt color... its chlorine or floride that causes discolor, so its in absense, so that water should be as close to distilled.

When people deionize, some type of filtration is used. Most cases its gonna be a distilled + RO if the water is priced high. Deionized will add more to the tag.

But im within 99.999% sure that the water he bought is good for his system.

Just because it says distilled or de-ionized on the label does not mean that it is clean.

Just because the water is expensive, does not mean that it is clean.

I never said that the water he bought wasn't clean, I said that there was no way to truly know unless it was measured. From personal experience, some of the "pure" water that you buy at the store as distilled or from auto parts as deionized for filling batteries is garbage. Generally it isn't, but sometimes it is.

In high volume settings, "point of use" systems, Distilled is MUCH MUCH MUCH more expensive to make than Deionized. Not only is there an energy cost to boil/vaporize the water, but the distillation systems must constantly be shut down and cleaned of residues. Just because Deionized is sold to the public for more doesn't mean that it costs more to make. That is the reason we use a Deionization system for our Laboratory grade water here at my work, as opposed to a distillation system.

Distilled can get more economical in factory production, but there still is a massive energy cost involved. That is just what it takes to evap the water, no way around it.

This isn't "I kinda sorta think I know what I'm talking about" this is "I KNOW what I'm talking about".

De-ionized water does not need to also be distilled to be free of minerals, I know this first hand. A deionization system chemically traps and neutralizes the minerals in a treated filter medium or by catalyzation and subsequent filtration, distillation does the same thing (remove minerals and impurities), but by evaporation. Distillation is just the easiest way to achieve super-high purity water, which is why it is so widely used.

That is why I said, distilled water IS De-ionized, because it has had its ions removed but De-ionized water has not necessarily been distilled. As I said in my first post, different means to the same end.

I personally oversaw the installation of our Deionization system, and check the water quality weekly to make sure it is suitable for our processes. My job depends on making sure our water is pure. If there were any notable amount of minerals in it, it wouldn't work for us.




edit: I just wanted to add, I'm not trying to be some jerkoff know-it-all here, it's just that I have been forced to learn about this through years of experience at my work and also through research on a product I've been working on lately, so I know quite a lot about it. That is all.

[WeeMaan]

I live in Finland and the only place I've seen you can buy distilled is the pharmacy for like 10 Euro / liter.
I can only find "battery water" and "purified water" wich I belive is de ionized.
It says 10us on the bottle, is that okay for a watercooling loop with nothing but silver?
Or should I look for something else?

[iandh]

I live in Finland and the only place I've seen you can buy distilled is the pharmacy for like 10 Euro / liter.
I can only find "battery water" and "purified water" wich I belive is de ionized.
It says 10us on the bottle, is that okay for a watercooling loop with nothing but silver?
Or should I look for something else?

That should be just fine.

Good quality distilled or deionized should be < 1µS, but there are different grades of deionized

I recently purchased six brands of distilled here in the states for an experiement, the best one measured 0.3µS, and the worst was 22.5µS.

The average was somewhere between 0.5µS and 1.5µS.


To be honest, < 10µS is still reasonably clean. It isn't completely ideal, but is plenty clean enough to not cause trouble in your loop.

[WeeMaan]

That should be just fine.

Good quality distilled or deionized should be < 1µS, but there are different grades of deionized

I recently purchased six brands of distilled here in the states for an experiement, the best one measured 0.3µS, and the worst was 22.5µS.

The average was somewhere between 0.5µS and 1.5µS.


To be honest, < 10µS is still reasonably clean. It isn't completely ideal, but is plenty clean enough to not cause trouble in your loop.

Okay, but now it turnes out they have something called "sterile water" att the pharmacy for 3,2 euro / liter.
I asked for distilled and she said this was at least as good, but what do you think?

How much water is it in one regular loop anyway? (TC 120.4, heatkiller, xspc ddc res top)

Edit: They said that they used the sterile water for mixing with anti biotics and such.
Wich do you think is better? The 10us DI water or the pharmacys?

[Conumdrum]

I'd buy 3 liters, you'll have a liter extra I'd say.

[WeeMaan]

I'd buy 3 liters, you'll have a liter extra I'd say.

Okay, I'll do that.
But the question remains, wich water is better? Pharmacys or the gas stations?