Distilled, Drinking, or Deionized?

[Shadow Grey 03]

Thanks Grey 03

Tt seems then that it is impossible to make the case that one 'form' of water is more (or less) corrosive than another - tap, filtered drinking, deionized, and distilled - without analyzing the tap/filtered water.

Because of other various chemicals that might be in it, it may be worse.

Perhaps why distilled/deionized water have been recommended all of these years - they are of a known purity vs. other water 'types'?

The main reason that they don't recommend "tap" water is that the minerals in there will possibly corrode the metal based on electron transfer. Same type of idea with a battery. You would have to find a chart to see which ones would attack which metal, because I can't remember all of that off of the top of my head. Usually had a chart in the front or back of whichever Chemistry book I had at that time. The chart had ranges of eV, I think, which would let you know based on that number what would give electron transfer. The metal electrode in those cases would basically be "eaten" away over time. Same type of thing going on here, just not in an acidic environment.

 

[liedenfrost]

This tread is full of misinformation.
Distilled water is deionized water. Distillation is a method of "deionizing" water (removing minerals, ions, etc which is a water purification method. Water can be deionized by several different means. Distillation, reverse osmosis, ion exchange chromatography are the most common means. Ford wants you to start with deionized water (distilled, reverse osmosis, or ion exchanged) so that when mixed with coolant, you don't get anything precipitating or reacting with the glycol.
You guys are correct in that straight deionized water is "corrosive" in its own right, but not when mixed with glycol coolant which introduces ions and reduces the "hungry" nature of the ion free water.
Let me know if anyone has any questions regarding "water" as I have a background in this stuff as a Chemical Engineer working in Biotech Pharmaceutical drug purification. We have insane water purification systems as our products end up directly into someone's bloodstream.

 

[MalcolmV8]

Anyone into salt water fish tanks will tell you ro/di (reverse osmosis de-ionization) water is some of the purest water you can get.

Here's part of my filtration setup in my basement.

The water goes through sediment filtration, carbon, more carbon, permeable membrane (vertical tube up top for reverse osmosis) and then finally through deionization at the end.

When measuring for any trace impurities in the water it's expressed in PPM (parts per million). The water I make through that system measures 0 PPM. It's as pure as you get.

Don't know how corrosive that is though. As others have mentioned above 100% pure water lacks ions and may be very reactive to metals.

On a side note, that system above does such a job at pulling impurities out it actually puts 4 gallons of water down the drain for ever 1 gallon of pure water it makes.

 

[Shadow Grey 03]

This tread is full of misinformation.
Distilled water is deionized water. Distillation is a method of "deionizing" water (removing minerals, ions, etc which is a water purification method. Water can be deionized by several different means. Distillation, reverse osmosis, ion exchange chromatography are the most common means. Ford wants you to start with deionized water (distilled, reverse osmosis, or ion exchanged) so that when mixed with coolant, you don't get anything precipitating or reacting with the glycol.
You guys are correct in that straight deionized water is "corrosive" in its own right, but not when mixed with glycol coolant which introduces ions and reduces the "hungry" nature of the ion free water.
Let me know if anyone has any questions regarding "water" as I have a background in this stuff as a Chemical Engineer working in Biotech Pharmaceutical drug purification. We have insane water purification systems as our products end up directly into someone's bloodstream.

So, what precipitates are going to form from EG in water in a cooling system? I believe that we already covered the fact that using DI water in coolant reduces the "hungry" nature as well. I'm just curious as to what precipitates out.

 

[Brutal Metal]

Bottled drinking water !

Gotta be more descriptive, Zephyrhills in my neck of the woods is natural spring water while lots of other bottled H2O is purified drinking water:shrug:

 

[CobraBob]

This tread is full of misinformation.
Distilled water is deionized water. Distillation is a method of "deionizing" water (removing minerals, ions, etc which is a water purification method. Water can be deionized by several different means. Distillation, reverse osmosis, ion exchange chromatography are the most common means. Ford wants you to start with deionized water (distilled, reverse osmosis, or ion exchanged) so that when mixed with coolant, you don't get anything precipitating or reacting with the glycol.
You guys are correct in that straight deionized water is "corrosive" in its own right, but not when mixed with glycol coolant which introduces ions and reduces the "hungry" nature of the ion free water.
Let me know if anyone has any questions regarding "water" as I have a background in this stuff as a Chemical Engineer working in Biotech Pharmaceutical drug purification. We have insane water purification systems as our products end up directly into someone's bloodstream.

I do respect your chemical engineering background, but what you are saying contradicts information I found from other chemical engineers on this subject. They really aren't the same. The process for each is different, and the result of each process is slightly different. Distilled water has virtually all of its impurities removed through distillation, which involves boiling the water and then condensing the steam into a clean container, leaving most of the solid contaminants behind. Deionized water, which is also known as demineralized water, is water that has had its minerals removed, such as cations from sodium, calcium, iron, copper and anions such as chloride and bromide. Deionization is a physical process which uses specially-manufactured ion exchange resins which bind to and filter out the mineral salts from water. Also, deionized water has essentially no ions, but can contain nonionized impurities like chloroform and alcohol, according to multiple explanations from other chemical engineers. Distilled water is a purer form of water.

Again, I respect your educational and vocational background, but I don't see how you can contradict those saying the the two are different. :??:

Here is a quote from The Water Company.
Is Deionized Water the same as Distilled Water?

In short; deionized water and distilled water are not the same because they are not manufactured using the same method of production, but you will find that deionized water can be used in the great majority of applications where distilled water is commonly used. And generally speaking, deionized water is purer.

Distillation is the oldest form of water purification, and is a fairly straight forward process, whereby water is placed in a heating vessel and a heat source is used to bring the water up to boiling temperature. The steam that is produced is then condensed and collected by using a cooling device (often called a condenser) so that it returns to its liquid state. Many of the water contaminants are left in the boiling vessel, which leaves the condensed water in a fairly pure state.

Deionisation of water using Ion Exchange resins is a much more effective way of producing pure water than distillation. The water is passed through spherical, porous resin bed materials, or ‘Ion-Exchange Resins’. This process allows the ions in the water to exchange with ions fixed to the beads. When deionising the water, the beads will either exchange Hydrogen Ions for Cations or Hydroxyl Ions for Anions. When exhausted, the resins can often be regenerated by either using strong acids or basis. This process will eventually damage the polymer chains constituting the beads, which means that new resins must be used in order to maintain the effectiveness of the process.

 

[01Jes]

I used purified bottled water, like 3 cases of it.

 

[liedenfrost]

I do respect your chemical engineering background, but what you are saying contradicts information I found from other chemical engineers on this subject. They really aren't the same. The process for each is different, and the result of each process is slightly different. Distilled water has virtually all of its impurities removed through distillation, which involves boiling the water and then condensing the steam into a clean container, leaving most of the solid contaminants behind. Deionized water, which is also known as demineralized water, is water that has had its minerals removed, such as cations from sodium, calcium, iron, copper and anions such as chloride and bromide. Deionization is a physical process which uses specially-manufactured ion exchange resins which bind to and filter out the mineral salts from water. Also, deionized water has essentially no ions, but can contain nonionized impurities like chloroform and alcohol, according to multiple explanations from other chemical engineers. Distilled water is a purer form of water.

Again, I respect your educational and vocational background, but I don't see how you can contradict those saying the the two are different. :??:

Here is a quote from The Water Company.
Is Deionized Water the same as Distilled Water?

In short; deionized water and distilled water are not the same because they are not manufactured using the same method of production, but you will find that deionized water can be used in the great majority of applications where distilled water is commonly used. And generally speaking, deionized water is purer.

Distillation is the oldest form of water purification, and is a fairly straight forward process, whereby water is placed in a heating vessel and a heat source is used to bring the water up to boiling temperature. The steam that is produced is then condensed and collected by using a cooling device (often called a condenser) so that it returns to its liquid state. Many of the water contaminants are left in the boiling vessel, which leaves the condensed water in a fairly pure state.

Deionisation of water using Ion Exchange resins is a much more effective way of producing pure water than distillation. The water is passed through spherical, porous resin bed materials, or ‘Ion-Exchange Resins’. This process allows the ions in the water to exchange with ions fixed to the beads. When deionising the water, the beads will either exchange Hydrogen Ions for Cations or Hydroxyl Ions for Anions. When exhausted, the resins can often be regenerated by either using strong acids or basis. This process will eventually damage the polymer chains constituting the beads, which means that new resins must be used in order to maintain the effectiveness of the process.

Deionizing water from either distillation (boiling water leaves the minerals and salts behind, reverse osmosis (basically a molecular membrane), and cation/anion exchange columns remove ions from solution end up with the same product and means to an end. They are very different processes in which ions and impurities are removed, but end up with purified water. Water will not stay "ion free" for long. Even exposure to air will increase conductivity. Water will actually pick up CO2 from air and drop the pH down to about 5.5 (mildly acidic) by forming carbonic acid in solution. That is why rain is always acidic. By the way, rain is actually distilled water, but quickly picks up pollutants in the air.

For the guys who want to run straight water at the drag strip, I would would not used distilled, deionized, or RO water since it will pull metal from your plumbing and dissolve ions as others have observed. I would just use a semi-clean tap water that already has some level of saturation of minerals. You could say that the water is less "hungry" for ions at that point and won't attack your system with the same degree.

I think we will just agree to disagree. :beer: Carry on guys.

 

[lemosley01]

Deionizing water from either distillation (boiling water leaves the minerals and salts behind, reverse osmosis (basically a molecular membrane), and cation/anion exchange columns remove ions from solution end up with the same product and means to an end. They are very different processes in which ions and impurities are removed, but end up with purified water. Water will not stay "ion free" for long. Even exposure to air will increase conductivity. Water will actually pick up CO2 from air and drop the pH down to about 5.5 (mildly acidic) by forming carbonic acid in solution. That is why rain is always acidic. By the way, rain is actually distilled water, but quickly picks up pollutants in the air.

For the guys who want to run straight water at the drag strip, I would would not used distilled, deionized, or RO water since it will pull metal from your plumbing and dissolve ions as others have observed. I would just use a semi-clean tap water that already has some level of saturation of minerals. You could say that the water is less "hungry" for ions at that point and won't attack your system with the same degree.

I think we will just agree to disagree. :beer: Carry on guys.

This thread and the linked thread had people stating that tap water was best. I have a problem with that for long term simply because one has no idea what is actually in tapwater - it most certainly isn't anything close to being chemically neutral. With distilled/deionized water you know that you are starting with 'pure' water and can add to it antifreeze or some sort of anti-corrosion agent.

We have iron alloy blocks - are the water passages coated with some other material to inhibit corrosion? How does the iron alloy behave in the presence of distilled or deionized water (and little or no air, as you would find in a cooling system).

 

[encasedmetal]

i use whatever the hell come out of my hose.....

so piss?

 

[Jimmysidecarr]

Tap water can vary greatly from region to region. Some may be perfectly fine, and others could be hard as hell!

I think bottled purified drinking water from your local grocery store shelf would be fairly consistent in having a fairly moderate amount of mineral content(less corrosive) yet not be a significant scaling risk and otherwise be quite pure and a good choice for use with high water percentage cooling systems with lots of aluminum.

If racers are installing a brand new aluminum radiator, we recommend they fill with a 50/50 water antifreeze mix first and put several heat cycles on it.
Then drain it and use it in one of their street cars or tow rig.
This allows the antifreeze to put it's microscopic protective coating on the inside surfaces, before the final fill of straight water required by most tracks.

We(Royal Purple) and I noticed recently that Fluidyne Radiator Co. also suggest that racers using straight water use a zinc sacrificial anode. Either in the drain plug or fabricated into the center rivet of a conventional old school metal rad cap. The radiator has to be well grounded obviously, which often involves removing paint from under the mounting tabs, or running one or two ground wires.

When checking voltage between the coolant and the chassis ground, if you have 0.3 volts or greater you are going to have galvanic corrosion problems very soon. Your cooling system has turned into a low voltage battery of sorts and it will be pulling aluminum molecules out of any aluminum the coolant touches.
Radiators and heater cores are the thinnest and so they are the ones that typically fail.

Running straight water is tough, that's why we recommend certain additional corrosion fighting measures be taken when customers call and ask about using Purple Ice in a straight water system. Water choice is then the first topic we touch on.

 

[03cobra#694]

Our water here sucks butt, hard as hell and loaded with chlorine. I use drinking water from one of those 5 gal jugs and antifreeze, 80/20 mix.

 

[timspony]

OK....great....so which water do we use for a 50/50 mix? :shrug: ....I read here on SVTP some time ago to use Distilled....

 

[Jimmysidecarr]

OK....great....so which water do we use for a 50/50 mix? :shrug: ....I read here on SVTP some time ago to use Distilled....

You can, it also says that in this thread multiple times.

Although I will be using bottled filtered purified drinking water from now on no matter what the water percentage is. But that's me. I already ruined one expensive radiator from running distilled with not enough antifreeze.

 

[earico]

You can, it also says that in this thread multiple times.

Although I will be using bottled filtered purified drinking water from now on no matter what the water percentage is. But that's me. I already ruined one expensive radiator from running distilled with not enough antifreeze.

Same here. I agree with Jimmie. I'll never use distilled water again. Bottled drinking water in my Mishimoto and 50% antifreeze.

I understand all the chemical talk claiming that distilled water is best but have any of you actually tried to drink distilled water? If not I challenge you too. Halfway through a cup your mouth will be all chalky tasting. It will latch on to every enzyme in your mouth and strip it right off your tongue. It is just a hungry liquid looking for chemical balance. It will latch on to whatever is available....especially aluminium & minerals. I'd much rather have a little mineral content in my coolant than have it attacking my aluminum radiator and heater core.

 

[SVTDice]

Hm, Do you reckon it would be worth it to drain and refill with Purified Water and Gold? I currently have a Gold and a Distilled water Mix in my system. Its far less then a year old.

 

[timspony]

You can, it also says that in this thread multiple times.

Although I will be using bottled filtered purified drinking water from now on no matter what the water percentage is. But that's me. I already ruined one expensive radiator from running distilled with not enough antifreeze.

Thanks!! :beer:

 

[Jimmysidecarr]

Hm, Do you reckon it would be worth it to drain and refill with Purified Water and Gold? I currently have a Gold and a Distilled water Mix in my system. Its far less then a year old.

Is it 50/50 or a high water percentage?

 

[mike_b_svt]

Well, I guess I'll throw my 2cents into the ring too...

On the sub we would distill seawater, boiling it and condensing the steam, thus purifying it for drinking by removing all the various minerals and whatnot.
THEN we would pass the distilled water through a de-ionizer (a resin bed to remove the remaining ions).
I imagine civilian world DI water is produced in a similar fashion. Otherwise you would use up your DI resin fairly quickly, depending on how "dirty" your supply water is.

So your distilled water is the first "filtration" process, then deionization is the "fine filtering", so to speak.

However, the DI will strip ions from whatever you put it next to. So once you pour it into / mix it with anything, it is no longer "de-ionized".

:beer:

 

[Riptide]

This sucks. I want to run a high water system over the spring/summer/fall in my intercooler. But the problem with that is if you use tap you get problems with deposits and if you use RODI or distilled then you get corrosion.

Does anyone know what the minimum percentage of antifreeze is required in the mixture to avoid corrosion?