Is DI Water safe or undrinkable?

A. Hello Dan.

Distilled water is made by boiling water until it turns to steam or water vapor, collecting that steam and then condensing it back to water. The theory is that contaminants that were in the original water will not vaporize and become part of the steam, but will remain behind as a residue in the first pot. This is true of general dirt, but may be less true for volatile organic compounds in the water. You may have heard of double distilling or triple distilling (perhaps in whiskey making); in that case you repeat the distillation process to get purer water (or purer alcohol).

An alternative to distilling is the deionizing process: the contaminated water passes through two columns full of ion exchange media, the first of which is saturated with sulfuric acid, the second with sodium hydroxide. The H+ from the sulfuric acid replaces any cation contaminants in the water, while the OH- from the sodium hydroxide replaces any anions, with the idea being that only fairly pure water gets through.

If ultrapure water is needed the water may then flow to a "mixed bed" deionizer where thousands of grains of cation exchange resin are mixed with thousands of grains of anion resin. The idea is that this is equivalent to passing the water through thousands of cation exchangers and anion exchangers in series.

Some people feel that deionized water (especially if a mixed bed deionizer was used) is so pure that it is very aggressive and unsafe to drink. Others feel that concern is silly. For my part, I wouldn't be comfortable drinking water that comes out of a tube that was recently filled with liquid caustic or concentrated sulfuric acid :-)

A. You can drink it, without the slightest worry. Search the archives of this site - the matter has been clearly explained.

A. I would be unhappy drinking either de-ionised water or distilled water. As Ted says, de-ionised water is made by passing it through ion exchange columns, one of which contains sodium hydroxide. This can enrich the water with sodium ions and this is bad news if you are health conscious. Too much sodium in your diet is definitely not a good idea -it can lead to high blood pressure and other associated problems. This is why you can buy low sodium salt, which is actually potassium chloride. As far as distilled water is concerned, again as Ted says, it is made by boiling out the salts. What you need to remember is that water is a damn good solvent, especially for salts, so if it is free of any dissolved salts, it will dissolve anything it comes into contact with. Consequently, when you put distilled water in your mouth, it will start to dissolve the minerals in your teeth and I am sure you dentist will not recommend this. If you put a little bit of distilled water on our tongue, you may feel the salts being dissolved from it - it tingles! I cannot answer for submariners because I have never been in the navy, but I would hope they would not use pure distilled water to drink - perhaps they doped it with bromide?

A. I do not agree with Mr. Reynolds on this matter. Deionized water is not safe to drink. Due to the purity of the water and the lack of minerals, DI is a relatively strong solvent. As such, when ingested, a condition called "osmotic shock" may occur. This condition occurs as a result of the DI water removing minerals and other elements from the cells in the body more rapidly that the cell walls can stand. The result is ruptured cells and internal bleeding. Though the cases are few and far between, there have been documented cases.

Best of Luck,

A. The following is cut from a letter in the archives of this site. I think it explains the situation very well.

QUOTE
"As for the relative potability of the pure waters, the difference in waters is very small. There is no adverse health affect from drinking distilled or deionized water. Deionized water tastes kind of bland & somewhat insipid, and distilled water has no taste at all. Some people get used to these qualities & drink them all the time. In either case, the taste is improved by aeration--if you shake the pure waters up with some air, the taste improves. The taste of any given water is largely imparted by the various mineral components; many of the drinking waters on the market today are, in fact, purified tap water to which minerals have been added (Avalon, etc). By law, drinking waters can not have more than 1000 parts per million of dissolved solids, so when you get down to the analysis of most available waters, there really isn't much difference between tap water, mineral water, or purified waters (no nutritional difference at all between any of them!) As far as the health issue is concerned, it is true, water is hypotonic to cells & will destroy them. However, tap water is also hypotonic to cells. Your skin & stomach & intestinal linings are perfectly suited for thriving in and processing water. If you were to inject water into your blood, cells would die. If you cut your skin & wash the wound, the exposed cells do die. Fortunately, the fats that lyse out of the exposed wound quickly makes the wound less susceptible to water damage. Any ultrapure water you drink will quickly dissolve some saliva from your mouth--as soon as it has dissolved few parts per million of any substance, it is no longer ultrapure anyway. If it is a concern & all you have to drink is ultrapure water, you can stir the water with a metal stainless spoon or your finger first & it will magically transform itself from ultrapure water to just water."

END OF QUOTE

A. I completely concur with Ira in that "the DI water removing minerals and other elements from the cells in the body." Bluntly, depending on the size of the individual, drinking over a certain volume of DI water causes diarrhea and stomach cramping. : (

What happens if one drops a copper iridium coin in the ultra pure water.. does the person cease functioning? Would one have to then wrap oneself in carbon paper to get moving again?

All righty then. Between this thread and searching the archives:

Dangerous: Thomas Baker, Trevor Crichton, Ira Donovan, Michael Majancsik, Tim Neveau, James Totter, Mary Cera.

Harmless: John Holroyd, Anand Jayaraj, Bill Reynolds, Dale Woika

Clueless: Ted Mooney.

Ted,

You forgot one, Smart-Alec: Marc Green

I nominate Marc Green for the award. Doesn't matter what water you start with or what you want to finish with, the coin will fix it!

Ok... now that I'm done laughing at Thomas' reply (with ya.. not at ya, buddy) I have to put my 2 cents in...I wouldn't drink anything that will corrode stainless steel....nuff said.

Hi, Tom.

Those who claim D.I. water is dangerous are not all water experts, nor does the other side lack water experts and people with specific medical experience in this.

It is dangerous to drink ANY industrial water because it is not protected by backflow preventers, will have no germ-killing chlorine, and is a breeding farm for bacteria; UV systems are often needed to keep DI water free of blooms. So the "Do Not Drink" signs are completely appropriate! . . . But the signs don't necessarily imply that the authorities have found that drinking D.I. water will lyse or explode a dangerous number of cell walls.

These kinds of laws rarely have any science on their side anyway. A few years ago it became illegal for NYC restaurants and butchers to use wooden cutting boards because it was "obvious" to the authorities that the cracks and gouges would accumulate germs and toxins. Then, after they stripped the old world chefs of the world's greatest city of their heirloom cutting boards, compelling them to switch to generic plastic boards and "stop selfishly risking the public health for their vanity", only then was it time to actually test the premise; and only then was it recognized that, unlike wood, plastic is an oleophillic surface that does not clean well like wood, is certainly not safer than wood, and may in fact be a serious hazard as a fertile breeding ground for food-borne bacteria and illness.

Of course, the pompous regulatory authorities who wasted taxpayer money banning wooden cutting boards are certainly not going to apologize not commit any research funds to proving that they were smug, know-it-all, blundering idiots -- so that was the end of it. Obey the law, post the signs, and don't drink water intended for industrial use -- but I'd look for documented animal tests demonstrating osmotic catastrophes rather than relying on wild conjecture.

Tom Baker:

The way that the water in your toilet swirls is controlled by your toilet design, not which hemisphere your toilet is installed in. The toilet shoots the water into the bowl at an angle, which determines which way the water swirls during exit.

Some old text books referred to hemisphere as the determining factor of swirl direction of a gravity drain, like a bath tub.
The reason given is the Coriolis effect, which has to do with the way that the Earth rotates out from under something that moves freely, like water or an object in flight. However Coriolis is too weak to come to bear on your tub water.

A. Hi people,

I read an article in New Scientist [affil link to Amazonaffil links] some time back about ice spikes, including how to make your own. Empty your freezer, and fill your ice cube tray with distilled water, and they grow as the surface freezes. Needs to be really clean water. So I went to buy distilled water, and could only get DI water. My ice spikes didn't work, but from now on, I will be eating DI ice-cubes. The bottle from which the water came says "Warning: Not to be taken." There is no poisons warning, health information, MSDS notes or anything anyplace on the bottle. I am quite sure that it is not regulated as a food product, and therefore cannot be sold as such, but for AU$1.39 for 2 Litres, it is much cheaper than spring water. I'll let you know if any adverse effects arise.

A. I'm sure that every water expert is familiar with the hazardous reactants that can be produced when water is chlorinated, Bob.

The thing is, every process and every decision has both advantages & disadvantages. After comparing the tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of lives directly saved from cholera through the introduction of widespread chlorination of water against the dangers of chlorination byproducts, you're right: virtually every public water supply which looked at that balance chose to chlorinate.

Nothing wrong with bottled water (except perhaps for the waste associated with having to transport it), but it's not a substitute for chlorination of municipal water supplies. You don't wash your dishes and bathe in bottled water, do you? If not, I hope you use chlorinated water rather than non-chlorinated water, which could spread fatal diseases.

A. I don't think you can say "it is well understood" after reading this letter, Rayja, wherein many knowledgeable people deny it. I don't know whether it's harmful or an old wives tale -- but I do know that it is not 'well understood' :-)

Sorry, but to try to skip the hotly debated point of whether it is qualitatively harmful at all, and jump directly into trying to quantify how many ppm of TDS is safe doesn't seem reasonable.

A. I have an RO filter (with an optional DI unit) at home for drinking, cooking, and for the icemaker. It has a separate spigot for 0 ppm DI water. Having a background in biochemistry/biomedical research, I find this thread truly interesting.

I've never seen a sign in research labs that says, "Caution, Deionized water, DO NOT DRINK", but I probably wouldn't drink water from a lab where chemicals (some dangerous) are being mixed. -Biomedical researchers just walk over to the rented water cooler/dispenser to have a drink, and I imagine the bottled water is reverse osmosis combined with multiple stage carbon filtering and ozone or UV sterilization, and has a content of 6-12 ppm solute (6-12 mg/liter dissolved salts).

Ion exchange media that is used to make DI water from RO water, it will remove all solute, and will leave +H & -OH ions, yes. But they should combine (& neutralize each other) to form a molecule of water. I believe food grade DI resin should be harmless, as it would be free of any chemical impurities.

Doing a search on the AMA, (American Medical Association, www.ama-assn.org), or the ADA, (American Dental Association, www.ada.org), there seem to be no references to warnings re: de-mineralized of de-ionized water. The ADA has a page re: recommendations to use fluoridated demineralized/deionized water to make up a bottle of baby formula, but that's about all.

My wife is a dentist. She said, "Deionized water might be dangerous? Really?"

I would agree that drinking "unbuffered" de-mineralized water when you really needing hydration, may cause absorption & dehydration problems (such as when you're working up a sweat from running a race). In this case, your body needs electrolytes for proper hydration. So, add a sport drink powder to your DI or RO water. Eh, Voila!

Pure water (de-ionized or de-mineralized) is probably (for the most part) less harmful to a person than soda pop, and doesn't have trace amounts of harmful chemicals that bottled water drinkers are wanting to avoid.

RO/DI water is the purest form of water that a household or modern submariner (or Space Shuttle Astronaut--guess where they get their water!) can obtain.

If you're worried that unbuffered water will kill cells for some reason, water filter companies sell an inexpensive "re-mineralization" cartridge that can be added to your RO or DI unit. Inside is a sand like media, similar to crushed coral skeleton. It should buffer & replenish your water with desirable minerals, and balance any pH issue you may be worried about.

I am not a professional water quality specialist. I'd be interested to see some medical/scientific documentation on the subject. The drinking water market is big $$, and accompanied by much marketing propaganda from more than one side. Bottled water is cheap to make, yet sometimes costs as much as fruit juice or gasoline.

2 cents.

Dasani bottled water is deionized water, filtered with RO/DI. It measures 0 ppm solutes.

A. Ok, to clear this up. I have done extensive research on the use of RO, RO/DI, Distilled, and tap water. According to everything I have found, the following is true:

DI water in manufacturing facilities usually have chemicals added to prevent bacteria formation and pipe corrosion. Therefore, that is why there are "Do Not Drink" signs.

RO water is completely save with no effects. It can be used without any concerns.

DI and Distilled water do have some concerns. The "pure" water is safe. However, it should not be an only means of hydration. It does "leach" minerals (salts, etc.) from the body which is bad over a long term. Most people do not drink only water. They will have tea, coffee, sodas, etc., that can replenish those minerals (as well as foods). You cannot live on DI/Distilled water alone, but you can drink it as long is it is not the only water you drink.

Tap water has many nutrients added, and is not harmful in any way. It provides fluoride for the teeth, but with any type of water, you actually can get water poisoning (hyperhydration) if you drink too much of any type of water because it leaches the electrolytes from your body.

Hope this helps

A. Well, Well. This is an interesting conversation that I can put to rest ...

I am not a water guy, I am not a scientist or and engineer nor do I claim to know more than anyone else on this site.

I worked in the Chemlab Clean Room in Lagrange GA of a major company about 8~9 years ago. Every time we came to work we had to put on a ridiculous clean room suite that covered us from head to toe including a veil for our neck and goggles ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] . The bad part was when it was time to take a break or go to the bathroom in the 10 minutes they allowed, it would take us 7~8 minutes to completely disrobe and to put the dang thing back on when we came back from break. this left us 2 minutes to use the bathroom and to get a drink.

After doing this for my first week I said forget it and I decided to just have a drink from the DI system. I thought, what could it hurt, it's just water? Right?

I drank about 2 glasses of it over the course of 2 hours and about 30 minutes before the lab closed, I started to get very sick at my stomach. I was walked to the bathroom by my supervisor and I threw up blood all over the floor. I started to produce Flu Like symptoms after a bit and I got very weak. They called an ambulance and took me to the hospital. After a 8 hour stay in the ER, I was informed that Drinking De-Ionized water caused this.

It turns out if you have ulcers in your stomach that drinking DI water will make you Really, Really sick.

I can't speak for those that don't have Ulcers as to what it would do, But I say don't drink the stuff. If water contacting blood can cause these types of problems, I would not drink It!

Please also keep in mind that this was a Chemlabs DI system and it was top notch. However they were lacking, the "Do Not Drink DI Water" Signs that are Federally mandated.

The lab got a good fine for that one! We found the sign behind the DI unit the next day covered in Dust.

Enough Said, you can stop the argument now.

matt

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Ed. note: Hmm, three people in a row presenting the absolute final word on the topic :-)

A. I have been reading the arguments here. For those of you who do not believe in drinking DI water, what do you think is in every canned or bottled beverage you drink? There may be a significant difference in individual water treatment systems, but like anything else, it depends upon the due diligence of the owner / operators.

At the very least bottling plants for beer and soda use acid / base water treatment.

Chlorinated water? Would you prefer cholera or dysentery? More soldiers died in war from disease (mostly from foul water) than from wounds.

As for the gentleman with the ulcers, do you know that several large American drug marketing companies spent millions of dollars trying to discredit the two Australian doctors who proved that a simple course of antibiotic treatment would cure ulcers? When large amounts of money are involved, some people don't care who they hurt, do they?

A. This is a very interesting topic. With a lot of different opinions. I will come from a different perspective. In my line of business, I have commercial customers that use DI water for precise applications (lab, experimental, chemical etc). Then I have the bottle water companies, water stores, and residential improvement customers that purchase Reverse Osmosis units for drinking water.

From what I have been told by Certified water specialist that number one, there is no true pure water. Since water is the greatest solvent on earth, any thing the water touches will partially dissolve in the water. Second, the only true way to remove most of the contaminants in water is through either RO or DI. To my knowledge DI just removes the metallic Ions from the water, but uncharged particles remain in the water. Where as RO water through its various filters will actually remove the contaminants.

I have not heard of anyone drinking DI water, and it does not sound appealing to me. For the past 10 years I have consumed RO water (Sparkletts, Dasani, Aquafina, etc. are all RO purified water). I have not had any medical problems with cells bleeding, the runs or anything else.

I guess when it comes down to it, it is whatever you want to drink. I will never drink tap water. I have read too many water analysis reports to know not to drink tap water. RO is the way to go in my book!