The public or tap water is being fluoridated in the US and some other countries, despite the controversy surrounding such action. Many believe that it should be stopped, as there are several side effects of such fluoridation. However, you can remove fluoride from your drinking water in several ways. Let us look at some of these techniques in the following sections.
Technique #1: Distillation
Distillation is capable of removing most of the impurities from water as well as fluoride except for the volatile compounds. However, the drawback is that it is a time consuming process and makes the water lifeless, devoid of useful minerals as well.
Technique #2: Reverse Osmosis
Reverse osmosis technique works by reversing the standard osmotic processes. Contaminants present in the water are removed with the help of semi-permeable membrane and pressure. It is seen that RO is able to successfully remove as much as ninety-five percent of fluoride from water and all the contaminants get trapped in the membrane, after which they are flushed into waste water.
Normally around four gallons of water are required for producing about one gallon of RO water, which is clear of fluoride. The other good thing about them is that they are able to remove volatile organic compounds also from water that is missing in case of distillation process.
Technique #3: Activated Alumina
There is strong attraction between fluoride and activated alumina that comprises of bigger surface area along with pores that are like tunnels and in the form of arrays. Thus, it is becoming a method, which is widely used for removal of fluoride from water. It can effectively remove up to ninety eight percent of fluoride from water in addition to arsenic.
However, you must note that as the process makes use of ion exchange, it is necessary that water and the media remain in proper contact till the time fluoride gets absorbed by media. The flow rate for water needs to be slower than ¼ gallon per minute to allow absorption of fluoride. Another thing is that with use the media gets saturated because of fluoride and needs to be replaced or recharged frequently.
Technique #4: BC Carbon
Bone-Char Carbon or BC-Carbon has long being used for removal of fluoride that is present naturally in the water. The system functions the same way that our bones attract fluoride. Bones have porous matrix, which has surface ions substituted by fluoride as well as some contaminants, such as heavy metals, that come with fluoride.
However, the benefit of BC-Carbon is that it can remove quite a few of these contaminants. The main benefit of BC-Carbon is that it can get rid of about ninety percent of fluoride present in your drinking water. Effectiveness of bone char carbon can be improved further by addition of pre-filters that can eliminate the heavy metals as well as other contaminants from water before it is exposed to BC-Carbon.
You can expect best results if the water is a bit high on acidic pH and efficiency is reduced in case of hard water. However, it is to be kept in mind that the bone char should itself be clean and needs to be of medical grade.
Ways of Reducing Exposure to Fluoride
- Do not use fluoride supplements.
- Do not drink bottled beverages.
- Start purchasing unfluoridated toothpaste.
- Do not drink red or black tea since their leaves have high percentage of fluorine.
- Often Fluoride is used in canned food and tinned fish as preservative thus better to avoid them.
- Stay away from chewing tobacco.
Summary
There are various methods of removing fluoride from drinking water and reduce the threat of various health problems associated with them.