High purity water treatment for medical facilities
High purity water is crucial for medical facilities. Water quality should be a top priority of any company that requires sterile processing equipment. Secondwind Water provides commercial water treatment systems for a variety of businesses and facilities that require high purity water.
High purity water is water that is free of total dissolved solids including calcium, magnesium, sodium, chlorides, and small amounts of dissolved organic matter. Some public water includes additives like chlorine and salt as well as naturally occurring minerals and organic bacteria.
High purity water for hospitals, outpatient clinics, dentists and veterinarians
These facilities all use sterilized medical tools and equipment to protect the health and safety of their patients and employees. An autoclave is a machine that uses pressurized steam to kill bacteria and viruses on tools or other items that are placed in the pressure vessel. Businesses that sterilize their tools and equipment onsite with an autoclave system need high purity water.
Autoclaves used in sterilization applications can cost thousands of dollars. If untreated water runs through an autoclave, mineral scale will build up inside the system, causing damage to both the equipment and the tools it sterilizes.
This kind of damage can also compromise the sterilization process, putting patients’ health and safety at risk. For this reason, autoclave manufacturers have very specific water purity requirements. If a healthcare facility doesn’t comply with a manufacturer’s water specs, there’s no guarantee the sterilization process will work. Also, non-pure water can damage stainless steel instruments used in medical procedures.
Treating for high purity water
How does a company get the high purity water they need? It depends on the quality of the water they start with. For example, we might use a carbon filter to remove chemicals and chlorine, and a water softener to remove any manganese and soften hard water. A reverse osmosis system will remove 95% to 98% of the minerals. The remaining minerals would be removed with DI (deionization) mixed bed exchange tanks.
Providing high purity water to a local hospital
Secondwind recently installed a water treatment system at a local hospital. The system provides high purity water to sterilize thousands of medical tools used at multiple locations throughout the facility. We installed a carbon filter and reverse osmosis (RO) and DI exchange tanks. Because the water was not hard, there was no need to install a water softener.
According to the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, the advantage of RO water is that it filters out contaminants with high efficiency. Reverse osmosis removes particulate matter, organic molecules and pyrogens that deionized water cannot. It is less corrosive to steel and copper.
Keep in mind, every high purity water treatment system we install is going to be a little different. The system is designed around the existing water quality and specific needs of the customer.
In our decades of serving New Hampshire’s residential and commercial water treatment needs, we’ve become experts in treating water used in sterile applications. If you have questions about high purity water needs in your facility, reach out today and one of our experts will be happy to answer them.
