Something comes to mind as I read the pros and cons of "lab grade" water. If its so aggressive and leaches compounds out of materials, is it really something to rinse your records with?
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Let's talk water. Fremer can come in and learn, too! Aquafina is reverse osmosis (RO) purified water to which minerals have been ADDED in order to improve taste! Now, tastewise, it is excellent. Whoever came up with the mix did a great job. RO water can be purified in a single stage (one pass) or dual stage (two pass) system. Depending on source water quality, a single pass system could bring it anyehre in the range of 17-22 micromhos (or microsiemens) conductivity. A second stage can bring it to around 8 to 10 micromhos, but that would be with relatively new and well serviced membranes. Regarding ultrapure water: by definition (and/or standards) ultrapure water cannot go above 0.10 micromhos (or microsiemens) conductivity. The purest water has a conductivity of 0.055 micromhos. It cannot be any purer because of the natural dissociation of water into H+ and OH-, which is 10e-07 for each ionic form. Store bought distilled water will usually have a conductivity between 1 to 3 micromhos. Ultrapure water is a highly agressive solvent, agressive enough to dissolve nose grease from my glasses! Isn't that something? Now, would one need to rinse records with ultrapure water? My answer is no--not even to rinse a stylus cantilever on a regular basis. Just use a Groovmaster to clean records, rinse them with tap water and then do another rinse with distilled water. Use the record vacuum cleaner only to suction the distilled water rinse. That's what I do. For those that don't know me, I have a BS degree in Aquatic Science. That means I am a water quality hydrologist and have worked in the ultrapure water industry. As usual, Dougdeacon gave the correct answer and it went over most people's heads. With psychic power and primal intensity, |
Psychicanimal: a couple of points regarding your discussion above. First, I believe you're confusing Aquafina with Dasani. Aquafina is reverse osmosis (RO) purified water to which minerals have been ADDED in order to improve taste!Dasani does indeed add minerals "for taste," but I'm quite sure Aquafina does not. And second, As usual, Dougdeacon gave the correct answer and it went over most people's heads.except that Dougdeacon says, As Viridian knows...lab grade water is a powerful solvent that's actually unsafe to drink.Which would be totally true if by "unsafe to drink" he actually meant to say "completely safe to drink." I drank mostly ultrapure water for the five years I worked at a virology lab, and can confidently attest that--except for an intractable case of audiophilia--I'm none the worse for it. And no, the water did not "leach all the minerals out of my body" as the well-intentioned hydrophobic (or is that ultrapure-ophobic) masses insist it will. That is complete and utter nonsense. And on a more general note, I'm always surprised that whenever the subject of purified water comes up around here, no one links to member Justin_time's amazing contribution: Finding Pure Water for Record Cleaning. This masterful discussion should be required reading for anyone truly interested in this subject. - |
Well then, I got Aquafina confused. I don't buy water. Still, commercial RO water is around 17-20 micromhos and steam distilled a much better buy for record cleaning and car batteries. When I worked making ultrapure water the guys that didn't want to go to work drank lots of ultrapure water to get diarrhea. Ultrapure water will not 'leach minerals out of the body' inasmuch one should not drink distilled water because 'the body needs minerals'. Minerals move in and out of cell membranes via active transport, for the most part. I drank ultrapure water every now and then to flush my kidneys. It's very potent for that. I would not advise anyone to constantly drink gallons of it, though. *** |
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