I never could get a straight answer if the activated charcoal filters can remove these.
I’m distilling my own water now. Seems about the same price as filtering once you factor in the costs of the filters. And you know you’re getting everything out.
(I add in my own minerals in case that’s important.)
Some carbon filters make the claim on the label, some don't. The only difference is some companies pay to test for it, and then they can make the claim on the labeling, there is no actual difference in the filters.
I don't think distillation actually works for forever chemicals, as they may be miscible to a certain degree or also vaporize and condense. Don't have the source, but there was a story about PFAS in rain recently. Your best bet would be reverse osmosis, which is unfortunately a pretty big waste of water.
You don't get all the water out that you put in. Currently, very efficient systems output about half the input as pure water, and half as doubly-impure. Less efficient systems are more like 1:2 or worse.
You need pressure on the feed side to overcome the osmotic pressure differential between the dirty and clean sides. The dirtier the dirty side gets, the higher pressure you need to move water from the dirty side to the clean side. Eventually you have to flush the dirty side because the concentration of contaminants is too high and nothing will go through the filter even though there's still water that you could use if you could get it through the membrane.
Under-cabinet RO systems are less efficient because they rely on the relatively low-pressure water that's running to the tap and are made to work without electricity.
but do you really care? The "wasted water" is miniscule vs how much people use daily. You fix the 90% problem before you fix the 3% problem, at least that's been SOP in my engineering life.
carbon filters remove PFAS but they're relatively ineffective so you need an awful lot of carbon to get a substantial reduction at least compared to the amount needed to remove other things.
RO is effective, as the chemicals in question have fairly high molecular weight.
But then RO is usually used with a bladder tank which will leach plasticizers so ::shrugs:: (they taste awful at least, so the norm is to follow up the tank with RO).
Compared to it's effectiveness against things carbon is usually used for. E.g. go look at the setup required for whole house filtration for people with actionable levels of PFAS contamination-- it ends up being like four or five 50lb carbon canisters.
If you're talking about 'safe' drinking water and want to reduce it from 2ppb to 1ppb or something-- just a 50% reduction-- then perhaps a small carbon filter is adequate.
For just drinking water RO is pretty reasonable, it's just not particularly reasonable to use RO for dishes, shower, etc. Thus the huge carbon canisters for people with acute contamination.
I have a multi-stage water filter setup at home that pumps the water through mineral balls as the last step to re-introduce healthy minerals that were removed during the reverse osmosis process. Because it's true, RO water is not suitable for long-term human consumption because of the absence of healthy minerals.
This is a common myth but it doesn’t make sense if you do the math. There aren’t enough minerals in tap to make a difference compared to the food you eat.
Per protocol, we gave our lab rats deionized water that was likely close to zero ppm. All the minerals they need are in the chow.
I have drunk delicious RO water at home for decades and have experienced no ill effects, all my blood work for minerals is perfectly normal, teeth healthy etc.
>Using an average calcium concentration in public water supplies of 26 mg/liter and a maximum of 145 mg/liter (Durfor and Becker, 1964) and assuming that the average adult drinks 2 liters of this water daily, then the drinking water could contribute an average of 52 mg/day and a maximum of 290 mg/day. On an average basis this would represent 5% to 10% of the usual daily intake or approximately 6.5% of the adult RDA.
>Therefore, typical drinking water in the United States, Canada, or Europe provides approximately 3% to 7% of the RDA for magnesium intake by a healthy human.
I suppose if someone was right on the borderline for mineral deficiency the ~5% of the RDA from water could make a difference but that isn’t really a problem Americans have, if anything they get too much from food. There is some data showing excess calcium is actually bad for heart disease since it is found in atherosclerotic plaques, a problem Americans do have.
In Israel, where a lot of drinking water is sourced by reverse osmosis, it appears that the lack of magnesium in drinking water may have increased heart disease:
I have a RO system at home, and it has a remineralizing cartridge attached to it. It's pretty cheap and seems to do its job well, the water contains healthy levels of minerals (I tested it in a lab).
Why isn't Israel doing it at a large scale? It should be pretty straightforward.
I am still highly sceptical about this and feel it is more of a "fear mongering" advertising - that this "remineralizing water" thing only started so that the RO filter businesses could create another source of recurring revenue. I also remember reading some study that said vitamins and minerals are better metabolised by our body as chemical compounds, as found naturally in food, than as individual elements in tablet forms. And that is why pharmaceutical companies have now started offering such compounds too - like Calcium + Zinc + Magnesium etc. Which also suggests that we may be better of with such vitamin and mineral supplements, if really required, than "remineralizing cartridges" which release questionable dosages into the water.
Distilled water lacks even electrolytes like potassium and other minerals your body needs. So you may miss out on a bit of these micronutrients if you drink only the distilled stuff.
Some studies have found a link between drinking water low in calcium and magnesium and tiredness, muscle cramps, weakness, and heart disease. Also, distilled water may not help you stay hydrated as well as other kinds of water.
I’m distilling my own water now. Seems about the same price as filtering once you factor in the costs of the filters. And you know you’re getting everything out.
(I add in my own minerals in case that’s important.)