المواصفات العامة للميسرات والمبادلات الايونية والحرارية

Cation Exchange Water Softeners
Do you want to improve the quality of your home or work place water?

Do you know what type of water filter or treatment device will work the best for your situation?

Will a water softener help?

How does a water softener work?

What's the best water softener to buy?

Here are answers to those questions and more.

What is a water softener?

About Resin Media

The Water Softener Control Valve

The Two Types Of Water Softener Controllers

What A Water Softener Will Not Do

What Water Softeners Will Do

What Is The Best Water Softener?

What Is A Water Softener Sometimes referred to as a water conditioner,

it does just as its name implies; a water softener conditions water with excessive minerals in it.

Once the minerals and scale are removed from the water, it feels "soft".

It does not leave minerals or scale behind which makes it feel slippery, which is also why

you can get away with using much less soap on your skin and in your laundry that usual.

There are no hard minerals for the soap to surround and cling to.

Water softeners consist of a tank with a tube running up and down the center.

The water enters the tank at the top and flows down the tank to the bottom where it is collected into the bottom of the tube which is called a distributor.

The water then runs up the distributor to the top of the tank and out to your faucets or water appliances.

Between the inner walls of the tank (called a resin tank or mineral tank) and the outside of the distributor tube is the material which takes the minerals and "hardness" out of your water called "resin".


Resin Media is made up of very small "beads" that are coated with sodium ions which attract the calcium and magneseum ions in hard water.

The hard water ions swap places with the sodium ions replacing them on the resin mediabeads which release the sodium ions into your water.

As you can see, the water softening process is a very simple one.

Water simply flows through the resin media which trades sodium ions for the mineral ions in the water.

"But what happens when the resin media runs out of sodium ions

?
The Water Softener Control Valve is attached to the top of the mineral tank and separates the in-flowing water from the out-flowing water making sure that all un-treated water goes through the resin media bed before flowing back up through the distributor tube and out into your home.

But the most important function of the water softener control valveis replacing the depleted sodium ions that were swapped out for your water's mineral ions.

When the resin bed is saturated with calcium and magneseum (preferably before total saturation) the water softener control valve initiates "regeneration".


The regeneration process involves releasing the mineral ions from the resin media beads using a brine (water saturated sodium) solution kept in another tank often called the brine tank.

The brine tank is connected to the water softener control valve through a tube or hose. The water softener control valve is able to draw brine from the brine tank and saturate the media tank's resin bed with it.

The brine water will release the mineral ions from the media resin beads by replacing them with the sodium ions which make up the brine solution.

The resulting concentrated solution of calcium and magneseum ions are then directed to a drain line.

The control valve then refills the brine tank with fresh water so that it can saturate it with the salt that is in the brine tank to produce more brine for the next regeneration process.

As you can tell, the water softener control valve is the main component of the water conditioning system. "So how does the control valve know when the resin media tank needs to be regenerated?"


The Two Types Of Water Softener Control Valves each initiate the resin media's regeneration process using a different method.

One method relies on timing. It is often called a timer or day timer control valve. It counts the number of days since the last regeneration cycle.

If your softener's timer valve is set up to regenerate every four days, the control valve will initiate a regeneration on the 4th day.

When you set up your day timer control valve, you calculate how much water per day that your household will use.

Divide the capacity of your softener (the amount of water that will pass through your resin media bed before saturation) by the daily gallons and you'll get a rough idea as to how many days will pass before you'll need to set your day timer valve to regenerate the resin media bed.

For example: your household uses 500 gallons of water per day.

Your softener has a capacity of 2000 grains based on the size of your resin media tank and the grains-per-gallon of hardness in your water.

You would want to set your control valve to regenerate every 4 days.
As you can probably already tell, chances are you are not going to use the same amount of water on Tuesday as you will on Friday.

That is why metered or on demand water softener control valves were invented.

With a metered control valve, you simply set it with the number of people in your home (or roughly the amount of water you will be using per day) and the size of your resin media tank and it then measures or meters the amount of water you use and schedules regeneration accordingly.

Some of them are even self-adjusting just in case you don't get the calculations exactly right.

The on-demand water softener control valves are by far the most popular ones we sell. They are efficient and the difference in cost can be made up with the savings in salt in as little as one year.

What A Water Softener Will Not Do A water softener will not filter sediment or sand out of your water.

It is not a filter.

It will not remove bacteria or nitrates/nitrites from your water. Unless you add anion exchange media to your softener's mineral tank, it will not remove tannins from your water.

Water Softener Specifications

Peak Grain Capacity 32,000 Grains 48,000 Grains 64,000 Grains

Cubic Ft. Resin 1.0 1.5 2.0

Service Flow (gallons/ min.) 9 12 15

Overall Heigth 56" 62" 56"

Floor Space Required 26" X 17" 27" X 17" 29" X 17"

Mineral Tank Size 9" X 48" 10" X 54" 12" X 48"

Brine Tank Size 15" X 17" X 36" 15" X 17" X 36" 15" X 17" X 36"

Pressure Loss Characteristics

Service Flow 255 (3/4" Valve) 268 (1" Valve)

2 GPM <0.5 psi <0.25 psi

4 GPM 1 psi 0.5 psi

6 GPM 2.25 psi 1 psi

8 GPM 4 psi 1.25 psi

10 GPM 6.25 psi 2.25 psi

12 GPM 9 psi 3.25 psi

15 GPM 13 psi 6 psi

HYDROSTATIC TEST PRESSURE 300 PSI

WORKING PRESSURE 20 TO 125 PSI

OPERATING TEMPERATURE 34 DEGREES TO 120 DEGREES F

HUMIDITY 10% TO 100, CONDENSING ALLOWED

ELECTRICAL (standard, other options available) 115V 60 HZ, 3 WATTS, STANDARD WALL PLUG

by
colonel.dr
bahaa badr
water treatment consultant