* Advantages of Vitamin over Traditional Technologies
• Vitamin C dechlorination has a lengthy history. It has been used in EPA and APHA methods for the dechlorination of lab samples. In the medical industry, it is the standard for critical applications such as dialysis, where the introduction of chlorinated water or toxic chemical would be catatrophic. Breeders of rare fish also choose this method of dechlorination. Very recently, Vitamin dechlorination is being used in the treatment of water. It fully neutralizes both chlorine and chloramines. There are several powerful arguments for using Vitamin instead of KDF, activated carbon or sulfur-based compounds as dechlorination agents. Vitamin utilizes ascorbic acid chemistry for dechlorination. It is made with an essential vitamin for humans and many animals, which is known to boost the immune system, improve skin and hair of humans. It is also the safest and least toxic of dechlorination agents. The research by US EPA found that L-Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) reacts rapidly and stoichiometrically with active chlorine and has limited interactions with disinfection byproducts. They found no interference from L-ascorbic acid or its oxidation product (dehydroascorbic acid) in mutagenicity assays of chlorinated NOM using Salmonella typhimurium TA100, with or without metabolic activation.
*Urbansky ET, Freeman DM, Rubio FJ, JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING 2 (3): 253-256 2000, United States Environmental Protection Agency(US EPA), Office of Research and Development, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Water Supply and Water Resources Division, 26 W Martin Luther King Dr, Cincinnati, OH 45268 USA.
• Activated carbon filtration (AC) is effective in reducing certain organic chemicals and chlorine in cold water. Chlorine is attracted to and held (absorbed) into the surface of the carbon particles. However, the efficiency of absorption is quickly nullified when the water becomes warm. The lifetime of an activated carbon shower filter is very short. An activated carbon shower filter gets clogged very quickly by the dirt it is meant to stop. As soon as that happens, it immediately starts to supply dirty water.
• KDF, another widely used dechlorination media, is comprised of copper and zinc. It removes free chlorine by reversing the electrochemical process that originally separated the chlorine from sodium in a brine solution. It can't, however, remove chloramines and, it's efficiency depends on water temperature, it doesn't work well in cold water.
• There are several other limitations using KDF as a de-chlorinating agent. KDF shower filters are also affected by water pressure. When the water pressure is not high enough, water simply can't pass through the KDF powders. The major problem of KDF shower filters is that the lifetime of the filter depends on the quality of the water passing through it. This is truly a cath-22. When the quality of the water is bad, that's when we need a shower filter the most.
• The dirt a KDF filter removes from the water quickly covers the surface of the KDF that in turn makes the filter ineffective very quickly. When the quality of the water is clean, we don't need a shower filter and KDF shower filters works great and will last a lot longer. Other shower filter manufacturers use sulfur-based compounds such as calcium sulfite or sodium sulfite (or sulfate) as de-chlorinating agents. These sulfur-based compounds can be toxic to humans. The addition of excess sulfite and sulfate chemicals to our water supplies has always been a concern.