RU2794186C2 - Device for drinking water purification - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: multi-stage modular purification of drinking water.

SUBSTANCE: device has a module with a chelating gel or a chelating and bactericidal gel to remove heavy metals and/or heavy metals and bacteria. The heavy metal removal module is connected to other modules such as particulate filter, water softener module, activated carbon module and filter membrane.

EFFECT: maximum efficiency and purification of drinking water from various spectrums of pollutants.

10 cl, 8 dwg

Description

The present application relates to a device for multi-stage modular drinking water treatment, where one module contains a chelating gel or a chelating and bactericidal gel for removing heavy metals or for removing heavy metals and bacteria.

With the increasing needs of a growing world population, increasing global environmental pollution and increasing quality requirements, the importance of water purification cannot be underestimated.

The quality of water, especially drinking water, can be affected by a wide variety of, and sometimes harmful, pollutants. Each time, especially heavy metals from pipeline systems (especially lead), from agriculture (eg cadmium), from coal-based electricity supply (mercury) or from natural sources (zinc, uranium, lanthanides) are of particular concern.

On the other hand, drinking water contains a large amount of organic micro-pollutants, mainly of anthropogenic origin. The most significant representatives here are hormones (originally used for contraception), residues of drugs or their breakdown products, or agrochemicals.

Bacteria form the third group of undesirable substances in drinking water. They often come from domestic water treatment facilities or, especially in warmer parts of the world, from a piping system. These bacteria are most dangerous to infants and young children or to people with a weakened immune system, such as the elderly.

In some countries, "chlorine" (hypochlorite) is added to drinking water to disinfect and kill bacteria. This ensures sterility, but significantly affects the taste of the water.

Other undesirable, although not harmful, components of water are high concentrations of calcium and magnesium, which, as hardening agents, are responsible for the hardness of water. Low concentrations are not only safe, but, on the contrary, beneficial to human health. But in high concentrations (high water hardness), calcium and magnesium cause a noticeable deterioration in taste, as well as unwanted "water stains" in the kitchen and bathroom, or the so-called boiler scale in water heaters (boilers) and on cooking utensils.

There are a large number of different, partially complementary devices for drinking water treatment on the market. In some cases, the proposed equipment combines different methods of water purification, but has disadvantages in relation to the complete elimination or removal of individual pollutants or classes of pollutants. At the same time, many of the known technologies have obvious drawbacks, such as low productivity, low efficiency, additional pollution, high energy consumption, noise pollution from pumps, etc.

Reverse osmosis (RO) uses a membrane through which purified water is pumped under high pressure to remove contaminants. But in the retentate, not only contaminants but also important minerals remain and are again concentrated. This method has many disadvantages for potable water treatment, such as high water loss (>80% retentate), high operating pressure that must be provided by an additional pump (along with high energy consumption and noise pollution), and last but not least, demineralization, which must be partially eliminated by the subsequent addition of calcium and magnesium. Despite these many disadvantages, reverse osmosis is widely used for point-of-use water purification.

Often used in the food additive industry (wine and beer), ultrafiltration removes suspended solids and bacteria with relative reliability, but is not suitable for removing heavy metals or "chlorine". Organic micro-pollutants are also not eliminated, and if they are eliminated, it is not enough.

Activated carbon is used in many household water purifiers, primarily to remove the "chlorine" taste and simultaneously to remove organic micro-pollutants. Activated carbon does not bind heavy metals, does not reduce water hardness and, due to its structure, is very susceptible to bacterial growth (biofilm formation), which in turn can lead to contamination of drinking water with bacteria and their metabolic products (“enterotoxins”) .

For example, a cartridge commercially available under the name MetCap-T for removing heavy metals is filled with a chelating resin (instrAction MetCap), the production of which is disclosed in DE 10 2014 012 566 A1 and DE 10 2016 007 662 A1. The use of a cartridge is also disclosed as an example in DE 102016007662 A1.

Due to its chelating properties, MetCap-T resin almost completely binds heavy metals. Alkali and alkaline earth metals do not bind at all or bind very weakly due to their much lower complex binding constants and are replaced by them in the presence of heavy metals. This selectivity is in direct contrast to the selectivity of ion exchangers used for softening.

In addition to the property of the MetCap-T type resin to bind all heavy metals with high performance and irreversibly, the MetCap-T variant (as disclosed in German application 10 2017 007 273.6) simultaneously removes bacteria, i.e. it has a bactericidal effect in addition to its function as a heavy metal scavenger.

A particulate filter is often installed on the inlet side of water treatment devices to remove suspended solids and particles from tap water. They are used primarily to protect other devices from clogging and thus to prevent pressure build-up and loss of performance.

Ion exchangers in water softener modules are used to reduce water hardness by removing calcium and magnesium. However, these ion exchangers do not eliminate micro-pollutants, nor do they eliminate chlorine or bacteria; on the contrary, they are often affected by the formation of biofilms. Another disadvantage is their low performance, especially in hard water.

Exactly where the use of modules for water softening is especially indicated, the performance of ion-exchange resins is exhausted rather quickly. Of all water treatment technologies, the ion exchanger is the most likely to require refurbishment. This is usually done by rinsing with a concentrated salt solution.

In addition to calcium and magnesium, ion exchangers also bind heavy metals. But the more the binding capacity is exhausted, the latter are replaced by much more concentrated calcium and magnesium ions and, as a result, are concentrated in the eluate. Ultimately, the ion exchanger is not selective for heavy metals over calcium and magnesium. Since the latter are in direct competition with heavy metals, they have an advantage in terms of binding sites, due to their much higher concentration in simple ion exchange.

In contrast, the aforementioned MetCap-T resin binds heavy metals selectively and to a great advantage, and allows harmful calcium and magnesium ions to pass largely unbound.

This is the central and essential difference between ion exchangers, which bind all cations non-selectively, and MetCap-T chelating resin, which selectively or highly preferentially binds heavy metals from solution.

As can be represented in the above embodiments, none of the listed components is suitable on its own to eliminate complex and multi-level impurity compositions, or, like reverse osmosis (RO), has serious disadvantages.

For this reason, there are already a number of manufacturers on the market offering devices that combine several of these technologies. One example is the device disclosed in CN 206359334 U, which combines a particulate filter, a chelating resin and an ultrafiltration unit. In this case, the taste of "chlorine" and organic micro-pollutants are not removed.

Many devices have a coarse filter on the inlet side. This serves to protect the connected device from dirt particles and thus from clogging and pressure build-up and the resulting reduction in performance. A serious disadvantage of many of the listed purification modules is the formation of biofilm, which (as in the case of the activated carbon module and ion exchanger) can have many negative consequences, some of which can be mentioned here: loss of performance, loss of filtration capacity, increase in pressure, decrease in productivity, contamination of drinking water with harmful bacteria and / or their toxic metabolic products, in general, a decrease in the quality of drinking water.

Thus, it has become necessary to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings of the existing technology.

This problem was solved by using a device for multi-stage modular drinking water treatment, in which the module contains a chelating gel or a chelating and bactericidal gel for removing heavy metal or heavy metal and bacteria.

According to one embodiment, the device may consist of a combination of different independent modules or cartridges that are connected to each other via pipes or directly.

The device combines and simplifies various independent water purification technologies in such a way as to meet the highest quality requirements by sequentially eliminating various pollutant spectra.

Cartridges have an inlet through which water from a piping system/faucet or an upstream cartridge enters the cartridge and comes into contact with the corresponding content of the cartridge. In addition, the cartridge has an outlet through which the treated purified water flows into the next cartridge or reaches the point of removal.

Preferably, the cartridges are connected to each other and fixed in the device in such a way that they can be removed, replaced or restored individually.

The device is operated at a pipeline pressure of preferably 0.5-6 bar, more preferably 1-5 bar, most preferably 2-4 bar.

The main device presented in this document is a cartridge filled with MetCap-T chelating resin for the removal of toxic heavy metals with and without bactericidal function. If the bactericidal variant of MetCap-T resins is used, as disclosed in German Patent Application 10 2017 007 273.6, then additional bacteria removal units are not necessary.

The center cartridge can be combined with a number of other cartridges, each of which eliminates specific spectra of contaminants that are not eliminated by the chelating resin. These cartridges may be located upstream or downstream of the MetCap-T center cartridge.

In addition, the entire device can be connected to a tank or directly to a diverter valve. The device can also be used as a component in a water heating system.

Because regeneration is often needed, the ion exchange resin cartridge is provided with a device for easy regeneration. This is achieved by rinsing with a concentrated salt solution. In a preferred embodiment, the need for regeneration is determined by appropriate sensors (eg water hardness, conductivity, flow cell, etc.) and indicated by warning lights.

Recovery can be manual, semi-automatic or automatic, depending on whether the device is equipped with appropriate sensors and reservoirs for storing salt or salt solution in the respective embodiment. In a preferred embodiment, the water softening module is provided with appropriate connections and valves for this purpose. Excess salt is discharged directly through the downpipe into the sewer or through the outlet valve.

For all other cartridges, remanufacturing is not possible and/or technically achievable with household chemicals.

In a preferred embodiment of the device, the inlet of the particulate filter is connected to a water supply system, the outlet of which is connected to the inlet of an activated carbon module, the outlet of which, in turn, is connected to the inlet of a water softener module, the outlet of which is connected to a MetCap cartridge, the outlet of which, in turn connected to a reverse osmosis module, the output of which then flows to the point of extraction (see Fig. 1). When the water pressure on the inlet side of the device is low, connect the pump.

Alternatively, the particulate filter can be connected directly to the activated carbon module, then to the MetCap cartridge, and finally to the reverse osmosis module (see Fig. 2).

In the last two embodiments, the arrangement of the MetCap cartridge and the water softener module can also be reversed.

In a further preferred embodiment, the particulate filter is coupled to an activated carbon module which is coupled to a water softener module and then to a MetCap cartridge followed by an ultrafiltration module (see FIG. 3). Alternatively, the particulate filter can also be directly connected to the activated carbon module, MetCap cartridge and ultrafiltration module (see FIG. 4). If required, a water softener module can be installed upstream of the MetCap cartridge. The advantages of this embodiment are that normally a pump is not required because the device has such a low back pressure that the line pressure is sufficient for normal operation.

In yet another preferred embodiment, the particulate filter is coupled to an activated carbon module and a water softener cartridge, which in turn is coupled to a MetCap cartridge that contains a chelating and bactericidal gel (see FIG. 5).

Alternatively, the particulate filter can also be connected directly to the activated carbon module and the latter directly to the MetCap cartridge filled with chelating and germicidal gel (see Fig. 6).

In this embodiment, additional bacteria removal membranes may be dispensed with.

In another preferred embodiment, the particulate filter is directly connected to the water softener module, and the latter is directly connected to the MetCap cartridge filled with chelating and germicidal gel (see Fig. 7).

In yet another embodiment of the device, the particulate filter is directly connected to a MetCap cartridge filled with a chelating and germicidal gel (see FIG. 8). This embodiment is similar to the cartridge disclosed in DE 102016007662 A1, but differs from it by filling with a chelating and germicidal gel.

The device can be easily combined with all other common purification or storage modules, such as a nearby purified water storage tank, or with other purification technologies such as UV disinfection (tank or network), redox filters, etc. or for further use in the preparation of hot water, with a CO ₂ addition module for the production of carbonated water, with the possibility of chlorination or the addition of hydrogen peroxide for subsequent disinfection or spoilage prevention, etc.

The device does not affect or interfere with the type of subsequent water extraction or water treatment.

The performance of the device can be monitored with appropriate sensors in the appropriate location, either at the extraction point or at points between the individual modules. Examples of suitable sensors include, but are not limited to, pH sensors, conductivity sensors, bacteria concentration detection sensors, ion-selective sensors, UV sensors, and the like. The flow cell can measure the amount of treated water.

In a preferred embodiment, the sensors are connected to a data processing system that monitors the operation of the individual modules based on the measured values and provides appropriate messages when the cartridge needs to be replaced or remanufactured. Using these sensors, the replacement of modules can also be controlled solely by time or by volume. Depending on the implementation, the data system may start the process of automatic recovery of the water softening module or close the valve to force replacement of the modules as a precondition for continued operation.

For the first time, the devices described herein provide the ability to carry out deep drinking water treatment as a simple household solution that outperforms all known systems in terms of purified water quality, efficiency or energy consumption.

On the one hand, devices are designed to remove really harmful, partially toxic substances, and on the other hand, to improve the quality of water in general by improving the taste (for example, by removing "chlorine").

In the smallest version, the device is suitable for home use and is designed for standard consumption. In more advanced versions, the device can also be used in apartment buildings, residential complexes, restaurants, hospitals, ships or other facilities where high quality drinking water is required.

Accordingly, another object of the present invention is the use of the aforementioned drinking water treatment devices.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The following drawings serve to further explain the present invention. They show the following:

Fig. 1: Schematic design of a water treatment device with a particulate filter, an activated carbon module, a water softener module, a MetCap module, and a reverse osmosis module.

Fig. 2: Schematic design of a water treatment device with a particulate filter, an activated carbon module, a MetCap module, and a reverse osmosis module.

Fig. 3: Schematic design of a water treatment device with a particulate filter, an activated carbon module, a water softener module, a MetCap module, and an ultrafiltration module.

Fig. 4: Schematic design of a water treatment device with a particulate filter, an activated carbon module, a MetCap module, and an ultrafiltration module.

Fig. Fig. 5: Schematic design of a water treatment device with a particulate filter, an activated carbon module, a water softener module, and a MetCap module with additional bactericidal action.

Fig. Fig. 6: Schematic design of a water treatment device with a particulate filter, an activated carbon module and a MetCap module with additional bactericidal action.

Fig. Fig. 7: Schematic design of a water treatment device with a particulate filter, a water softener module and a MetCap module with additional bactericidal action.

Fig. 8: Schematic design of a water treatment device with a particulate filter and a MetCap module with additional bactericidal action.

Claims (21)

1. A device for multi-stage modular drinking water purification, characterized in that one module contains a chelating gel or a chelating and bactericidal gel for removing heavy metals or for removing heavy metals and bacteria, and the module for removing heavy metals is connected to other modules, such as a filter particulate matter, water softener module, activated carbon module and filter membrane. 2. The device according to claim 1, in which the following modules are connected in series: particulate filter, activated carbon module, water softener module, chelating gel, reverse osmosis module, or the following modules are connected in series: particulate filter, activated carbon module, water softener module, chelating gel, ultrafiltration module, or the following modules are connected in series: particulate filter, activated carbon module, water softener module, chelating and bactericidal gel, or the following modules are connected in series: particulate filter, activated carbon module, chelating gel, reverse osmosis module, or the following modules are connected in series: particulate filter, activated carbon module, chelating gel, ultrafiltration module, or the following modules are connected in series: particulate filter, activated carbon module, chelating and bactericidal gel. 3. The device according to claim 2, characterized in that it is possible to connect the device directly to the water supply system and the ability to work with pressure in the pipeline in the absence of a reverse osmosis module. 4. The device according to claim 2, characterized in that the device is additionally equipped with a pump when using a reverse osmosis module. 5. The device according to one of paragraphs. 1-4, characterized in that the modules can be replaced or restored independently of each other. 6. The device according to one of paragraphs. 2-4, characterized in that the water softening module contains a device for automatic, semi-automatic or manual recovery. 7. The device according to one of paragraphs. 1-6, characterized in that the device contains a pH sensor, a conductivity sensor, a UV sensor or sensors for detecting bacteria. 8. The device according to one of paragraphs. 1-7, characterized in that the sensors issue a warning signal when the specified limit values are exceeded or not reached. 9. The device according to one of paragraphs. 1-8, containing additional elements selected from a water tank, a water heating system, a (UV) disinfection system, a redox filter, a CO ₂ dosing unit, or a chlorination device. 10. The use of the device according to one of paragraphs. 1-9 for drinking water treatment.

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