Our Technology Is Revolutionary
Our technology represents no less
than a revolution in water treatment system design. How do we do it?
At the heart of our systems we combine four advanced, filtration
media in a nearly perfect marriage. These patented media are
contained in two easily replaceable cartridges. These are the heart
of our system. To learn more about how our technology is
revolutionizing the water treatment business, click on one of the
links below.
Limitations
of Reverse Osmosis Technology
Understanding
Our Doulton Sterasyl® Ceramic Technology
Understanding
Our Patented KDF®55 Redox Media
Independent
Labs Confirm Superior Performance
Understanding Our
Carbon Block Resin Media
Understanding
Our Patented Micro-filtration Media
Benefits of Ster-O-Tap®
The Advantages
of LivingWaters™ Technology
Limitations of Reverse Osmosis
Technology
Until now, a technique known as
reverse-osmosis (RO) was the best way to create clean drinking
water. With RO technology, water is forced against a membrane that
contains pores so tiny that only water molecules are supposed to
squeeze through leaving impurities behind. While the process
works well, the technique does have its problems. Even the best
RO systems waste a lot of water; RO is not good at removing certain
volatile organic chemicals from water like pesticides, herbicides,
petroleum distillates, and pharmaceutical residues; RO strips water
of beneficial minerals; membranes can break-through rendering
product water unsafe without warning; and high quality units are
relatively expensive to buy, install and difficult to maintain.
Understanding Our Doulton Sterasyl®
Ceramic Technology
Our technology begins by
incorporating the finest ceramic filtration media available in the
world today. It makes a perfect pre-filter because ceramic material
can be easily cleaned and re-used again and again.
While there are many makers of
ceramic water filtration elements, Doulton Sterasyl® ceramic
technology is recognized as the world?s finest. Doulton® has been
manufacturing their water filters for over 150 years. Their
technology is in daily use in over 130 countries around the world.
We chose Doulton® to incorporate
into our technology because their ceramic material has a highly
consistent and controlled pore structure in which silver is
incorporated. Silver inhibits the growth of bacteria making the
material self-sterilizing. This eliminates the need for the regular
boiling required by other ceramic cartridges in order to avoid the
build-up of harmful bacteria. Our Doulton® pre-filtration elements
are capable of removing 99.9% of all particles greater than a half
micron in size. This means that 99.99% of pathogenic bacteria like
E. Coli, Shigella, Salmonella, and Klebsiella, and 99.999% of cysts
like Giardia and Cryptosporidium are also removed at this stage.
Doulton Sterasyl® Ceramic Technology
is so efficient that many water treatment systems rely on it
exclusively. In LIVINGWATERS™ Water Treatment Systems, it is only
just the beginning of our technology.
We take this outstanding technology
and fill each element with a full 24 oz. of premium KDF®55 redox
media. This marriage results in a cartridge that does what few other
water treatment methods can claim. It produces water so clean, so
pure, and so free of harmful bacteria, heavy metals, chlorine and
other contaminants, that even water treated by reverse osmosis can?t
compare. To learn why, read on.
Understanding Our Patented KDF®55
Redox Media
Our technology incorporates KDF®55 a
redox media made of a patented, high purity alloy of copper and
zinc. This media eliminates contaminants from water by utilizing the
principle of electrochemical oxidation-reduction, known as redox
potential. Redox is the principle of opposites at work. Some atoms
are positively charged and are attracted to the negative charge of
the zinc. Others are negatively charged and attracted to the
positive charge of the copper. Electrons are transferred away from
some substances causing them to be oxidized. The element that keeps
the electron is said to be reduced.
KDF®55 media uses the redox
principle in the presence of dissolved oxygen to effectively remove
chlorine, chlorinated hydrocarbons, hydrogen sulfide, iron, and
metals like lead, arsenic, aluminum, mercury and cadmium from water.
As water containing dissolved substances enters a bed of high purity
copper-zinc granules, copper becomes a cathode and zinc an anode.
The tiny space between each granule becomes an electrolytic cell,
with the water and its contents acting as the electrolyte.
As contaminants and oxygen pass
through, heavy metals plate out on the surface of the granules.
Chlorine and the disinfect ion by-products it creates are turned
into harmless chloride ions and ozone. In the process, copper and
zinc chelates are produced that are important nutrients for the
human body.
One of the most important benefits of
treating water with the KDF® in our technology is that as the water
passes through the media, it takes on a load of excess electrons
thus improving its redox potential.
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Improved redox potential imparts two
significant qualities to water as it pertains to health.
Along with the ozone created in the
process, KDF® prevents viruses, algae, fungi, and bacteria, from
growing in the product water. The water with its increased load of
electrons becomes a liquid antioxidant (a free-radical fighter like
vitamin C).
Some water treatment products also claim their process imparts
healing qualities to water. Some say these qualities magically
appear because the water is made to travel next to a vessel
containing water from some primative undisturbed aquifer. Others
attribute their benefits to passing water through a vortex or some
other strange metal shape.
With a LivingWaters™ Water
Treatment System, you don't have to rely on some esoteric belief.
The value of increased redox potential in our technology is based on
solid science. The redox potential of water can be easily measured
both before and after passing through our treatment process to
demonstrate the not only the existence, but the magnitude of the
effect.
Because of the amount of KDF® we use
in our systems, and our design which provides maximum contact time
for the water, the magnitude of this effect with our LivingWaters™
systems exceeds that of water exposed to magnets or even
electrolysis.
No other system can make these claims
and back them up with real science. With our technology we can. It
is part of the reason we call our systems LIVINGWATERS™ Water
Treatment Systems.
Independent Labs Confirm Superior
Performance
- KDF Lab Test Results from PatChem
Laboratories
- KDF Lab Test Results from
Biological Research Solutions
- KDF Chlorine Removal Test Results
from Clack Corporation
- KDF Bacteriocide Test Results from
Biological Research Solutions
Independent laboratory tests confirm
that KDF®55 is one of the best media for improving drinking and
bathing water naturally and economically. That is why we incorporate
it into our technology.
Compared to carbon-only units, KDF®55
lasts far longer, doesn't permit bacterial growth, and removes a
much wider range of inorganic matter (e.g. heavy metals). Compared
to reverse osmosis, KDF®55 is less expensive, wastes no water, does
not require membrane replacement, works at most water temperatures
and pressures, and removes chlorine. Compared to ultraviolet lights,
KDF®55 works in cloudy water, doesn't require bulb replacement or
electricity, and removes inorganics. Compared to ozone, KDF®55
provides a residual effect to keep bacteria from growing in water,
does not require electricity, and costs far less to buy and
maintain.
Understanding Our Carbon Block Resin
Media
The third stage of our technology
incorporates a premium Carbon Block Resin (CBR) media. This consists
of a premium coconut shell carbon material that is powdered, mixed
with a special resin that removes heavy metals, then extruded into a
solid carbon block. Most of our competitors that use carbon blocks
make them from a carbon derived from coal. They do this for two
reasons. First, coal based carbon is much cheaper than coconut shell
carbon. Second, because they have no other way of dealing with dirt
or chlorine in water, they need a media that will give adequate
service life for those purposes. In short, they have to depend on
one media to do lots of things.
In our technology, by the time water
gets to our carbon block stage, dirt, chlorine and its disinfection
by-products, heavy metals, and many other contaminants have already
been removed by the preceeding ceramic/KDF stages. We use our carbon
for an entirely different purpose.
Our coconut shell carbon is far
superior to any coal based carbon at adsorbing a wide variety of
organic contaminants including compounds that create tastes and
odors in water, as well as insecticides, herbicides, pesticides,
hormone and pharmaceutical residues, and other volatile organic
chemicals (VOC's) that are increasingly finding their way into our
water supplies.
Of further benefit, the Doulton
Ceramic and KDF® pretreatment causes our coconut shell CBR media to
last over twice as long, thereby making LIVINGWATERS™ Water
Treatment Systems among the most economical to maintain.
The difference between filtering
water through regular granular activated carbon filters (GAC) vs.
our carbon block resin (CBR) media is like the difference between
passing water through sawdust vs. a solid block of wood. ALL water
makes contact with the carbon instead of channeling through the
media. Pore sizes are so small that 99.95% of dangerous cysts and
most bacteria cannot make it through.
In our technology, this premium CBR
media becomes an important backup to the Doulton Sterasyl® ceramic
first stage which likewise does not permit the passage of cysts and
kills bacteria. But ceramics, no matter how well they are made, if
handled roughly, can develop minute cracks invisible to the human
eye. Should this happen, they are useless against bacteria and
cysts.
Our patented CBR media provides the
first level of valuable back-up to our Doulton® ceramic technology.
The next media we employ provides a second layer of back-up. That is
why we offer the only water treatment system in the world that can
honestly say that our technology is built to be redundant and
fail-safe.
Understanding Our Patented
Micro-filtration Media
Disease producing microorganisms are
a growing problem in the nation?s water supply. They are a problem
not only for well owners, but also for those who rely on city water.
There are at least two significant reasons why this is true:
Most municipal or community systems
rely on chlorination to disinfect water supplies. There are a
variety of dangerous organisms that are not killed by chlorination.
Recently, in Milwaukee Wisconsin, over 250,000 people became ill and
over a hundred died from an epidemic caused by dangerous
Cryptosporidium cysts found in the city?s water supply. Treatment
systems depend upon machinery and even the best machinery can fail.
When this happens (as during floods or times of spring runoff),
consumers of city tap water may become infected with dangerous
microorganisms while drinking unsanitized water without knowing it.
Manufacturers of inexpensive systems like pour-through pitchers and
certain faucet-mounted devices aggressively advertise they meet NSF
Standard 53 by removing 99.95% of dangerous cyst-producing
organisms.
As helpful as they are, they don?t make water safe! A device that
can trap 99.95% of cysts can let dangerous bacteria pass through
like a bowling ball through a barn door.
Bacteria can occur in unsanitized
water at levels from 100,000 to 1,000,000 organisms per milliliter.
Since there are approximately 250 milliliters in an 8-ounce glass of
water, that glass can contain from 25 to 250 million bacteria of
various types. The smallest of these can be as little as .3µ (µ =
micron = one-millionth of an inch). The average human hair is about
100 microns in diameter.
Until recently, the only technologies other than chlorination that
could claim they effectively control bacteria were reverse-osmosis,
ozone, and ultraviolet light. But each of these has serious
limitations. The problem with reverse-osmosis is that as membranes
age, the diameter of the pores in the semi-permeable membrane
through which the water is forced become larger. This is a
phenomenon known as breaks-through. All RO systems are vulnerable to
this process. As it happens dangerous bacteria find their way into
the treated water without warning.
Ozone and ultraviolet light (UV) require electricity to operate.
When power runs out so does your ability to have safe water! Another
problem with UV is that if the water is not crystal clear, or the
frequency of the bulb or the power supply changes slightly, UV
systems lose their effectiveness.
Most of these systems advertise that they remove 99.9% of bacteria.
This may sound efficient, but a system rated at 99.9% (log 3
removal) would leave in the above-mentioned glass between 25,000 to
250,000 organisms ? easily more than enough to be an infectious dose
depending on the microorganism.
Our technology uses a patented, entirely new process that focuses on
the absolute physical removal of very small particles and
microorganisms, achieving more than 99.9999999% (log 9 removal) of
the smallest bacteria known. That means that in the aforementioned
glass, no microorganism would be left that could cause a disease!
Ster-O-Tap® is a capillary
bundle of ultra-filtration membranes, closed on one side and open on
the other. These membranes are composed of a gradient-density
hydrophillic (water-loving) material embedded in small rigid
"straws". These membranes are forged into an element that
is embedded in our ultra-pure carbon block resin media described
above. In-line pressure forces water through the carbon-block wall
to the inner bore of the capillary bundle and then leaves the
cartridge as filtered and sterile water.
By using a special polymer blend, Ster-O-Tap® has been able to
achieve a combination of membrane properties that, until now, has
never been achieved:
Benefits of Ster-O-Tap®
Unlike RO, Ster-O-Tap® does not
waste 3 to 7 gallons of water for every gallon it produces.
Unlike RO, Ster-O-Tap® dispenses a continuous, ample supply of
water. You can?t run out so you can use purified water to wash
vegetables, boil pasta, make beverages, and pour glasses of water.
Unlike RO, Ster-O-Tap® does not require a storage vessel. Apartment
dwellers can invest in a portable system that is simple to transport
and homeowners can free space under their sink.
Most importantly, unlike RO, the Ster-O-Tap® membrane cannot
break-through rendering product water unsafe without warning.
The Ster-O-Tap® micro-filtration capacity guarantees removal of
99.9999999% of bacteria, molds and spores, and 99.999% of viruses;
thus rendering water safer from microorganisms than is possible with
any other method, except prolonged boiling or distillation.
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The Advantages of LivingWaters™
Technology
Because of our technology, our family
of LivingWaters™ customers enjoy the best quality drinking water
in a way that is less expensive, more convenient, and far more
reliable than is available with any other water treatment device.
Our KDF® media surpasses the performance of even the best RO
systems at the removal of chlorine, the disinfection by-products of
chlorination, heavy metals and other inorganic contaminants. It also
turns your water into a powerful anti-oxidant.
When it comes to making water safe,
our technology is without equal.
Each LIVINGWATERS™ Water Treatment
System employs FOUR technologies proven to control bacteria without
electricity. First is the Doulton Sterasyl® silver-impregnated
ceramic cartridge capable of removing 99.99% of pathogenic bacteria.
Second is the KDF®55 media that uses its redox potential to destroy
any remaining bacteria as well as viruses. These two technologies
are contained in the first cartridge, and that is only our
pre-filter!
In the second cartridge, our premium carbon block resin technology
begins the third stage of treatment. Then we go further! All 4, 5,
and 6 stage LIVINGWATERS? Water Treatment Systems employ the
recently developed capillary membrane, micro-filtration technology
known as Ster-O-Tap®.
These four technologies form the heart of every LivingWaters™
Water Treatment System. From there, systems are configured for
special water problems like fluoride, nitrate removal, and
chloramine removal.
What this means is that for the first time, you can own a water
system that you can trust to make your water safer and healthier
than has ever before been possible. With our technology, no power is
required; no break-through is possible and ALL these technologies
work on cloudy or turbid water!
Not even the best ceramic, reverse-osmosis, or carbon-block
technologies can meet that standard! It is a remarkable performance
that has been confirmed over and over by independent laboratories.
Best of all, as we develop our technology, we commit to implementing
our advancements in standard sized cartridges. That is why our
family of customers who bought their systems from us years ago are
enjoying our latest technology every time they change their filters!
With our technology, the result is a system that is so safe,
economical, convenient, and efficient, that nothing else on the
market can compare!
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