When I got into work today, yes, on presidents day, I decided to use the resources that are available to graduate students at the flagship state school the 'University of Utah', or rather, Pleasant Grove Community College as its so often referred to in the Valley. What I found when typing in 'magnetic water treatment' was a variety of articles where people have actually studied the effect water has on aragonite and its precipitation. Here is the doi (document object identifier or something to that accord) 10.1016/j.ces.2006.12.051 (just cut and paste it into in the search bar of the doi website (
http://www.doi.org/), though YOU all might have to pay for it. If you'd like a copy, contact me personally and I will send you the article via email). For the bibliography, here is that as well (*note: this article was written recently): Chemical Engineering Science 62 (
2007) 2089 – 2095.
For reference MWT is Magnetic Water Treatment, youll see it a lot below
Ill cut and paste the important parts of this document:
Experimental:
'Two experimental lines (Fig. 1) were installed to compare the amounts of the scales precipitated in two identical boilers and pipes from magnetically treated (MWT line) and untreated water (blank line). Both lines were supplied by tap water at adjusted input (0.2 l/min) running continuously for three weeks. In MWT line, water was circulated through the magnetic device to intensify its effectiveness and to fulfill the effectiveness condition of water velocity in MWT device, which is from 0.5 to 2 m/s. In our case, the velocity through the gape of the magnetic device was adjusted on 1.25 m/s (water circulation flux 5.3 l/min). The retention time of water in the magnetic field was 0.1 s. The water was heated in boilers from 16 to 70 ◦C. Some parts of the equipment in which an abundant precipitation was expected, such as heating copper-pipe spirals and some segments of zinc-coated steel pipes for hot water conduction, were weighted before and after the experiment. The applied MWT device was constructed with alternately arranged permanent Neodim magnets (Fig. 2), yielding a magnetic field with three maximums of density 0.6 and 0.8Vs/m2 (Fig. 3a). Density curve along the axis at the edge of the gap (indicated as edge axis in Fig. 2) is only slightly lower than
the curve along the center axis. Data in Fig. 3 were monitored by Hall effect method with a microprobe point-measurements (Goriˇcan et al., 2000).
Tap water had a total hardness of 14 German degrees, pH of 7.5, electrical conductivity of 485 S/cm, turbidity of 0.35NTU and concentrations given in Table 1.
Results (the important stuff for conciseness):
'The scale precipitated on hot surface of the heating spiral in both lines. After the lining had reached the particular thickness, it started to crack and husks were accumulated on the bottom of the boiler. Photographs of scales are presented in Fig. 4. In the blank line, scale on the heating spiral was 3.5mm thick in average. On the boiler’s bottom, the sediment consisted of well-formed crystals (diameter 2–3 mm) and scale husks (also 3.5 mm). The outlet pipe was almost blocked by the abundant and compact scale (Fig. 4c). In MWT line, lining on heating spiral was also present, but the amount of sediment on the bottom was much smaller—for about 70%, and it consisted only of husks, which were about 2.5-times thinner than those in the blank line (Fig. 4a and b). Secondly, the major difference was inside the outlet steel piping (Fig. 4d), where only a small amount of powder-like coating was found in L-segment of the pipe inMWTline. It was wiped out easily and its amount was negligible in comparison to the abundant scale from untreated water.
Considering the over-saturation in the boilers, a diagram, presented in Fig. 5, was estimated by Eq. (8) taking the values for the equilibrium constants from Table 2. During the run, inlet and outlet calcium concentration was being determined periodically by EDTA titration. With certain timely variations, the inlet data were 16 ◦C, 1.8 mmol/l Ca2+ and pH=7.5; and the outlet data were 70 ◦C, 1.0 mmol/l Ca2+
and pH = 7.5, for both lines. The concentration varied up to ±0.1 mmol/l and pH up to ±0.2. The inlet concentration was slightly below the solubility point (that is 1.88 mmol/l from the isotherm at 16 ◦C); and in boilers, 3.6 higher than the solubility point at 70 ◦C, while in the outflow, it was double higher. According to the outlet calcium concentrations similar from both lines, and the weight difference between the scales, we
can conclude that certain part of CaCO3 was somehow washed away by water flow.'
Heres the best part:
'After the first experiment was completed, two additional runs were performed in MWT line. For the first additional run, the scaled pipe from the blank line (Fig. 5c) was installed into MWT line and then the test was conducted at the same conditions as in the first run. The old scale was gradually disappearing; for about 2mm in 10 days. This result is consistent with some other reports (Grimes, 1988) and with our further
industrial experiences with the MWT device applications. For instance, a pipe-shell heat exchanger was supplied with tap water, which had similar composition as the one in our laboratory. The water was used for cooling with outlet Temperature 40 ◦C. The water was not pretreated properly and scaled up the inner side of pipes in the heat exchanger drastically. After the installation of our devices at the entrance of the exchanger, the scale completely disappeared in a few months. Secondly, an article on reduction in the surface tension of water due to magnetic treatment and hydrodynamic treatment was published recently (Amiri and Dadkhah, 2006). In that report, a circulation of pure and tap water through plastic Tygon pipe affected the surface tension similarly as MWT. To find out the portion of possible hydrodynamic effect due to the circulation on our results in MWT line, we repeated the run in the line with the circulation, but without MWT unit, which was replaced by a blank pass. The scaling was quite similar to the scaling in the blank line from the first run; an abundant blockage in outlet pipe occurred. Some thickness and amount differences of sedimented husks in both latter tests appeared, but these were rather a result of slightly different fluctuations of tap water composition than in the first test.'
For the chewed up version: essentially the MWT still had some scaling, but the degree of it was far less. The large amount of scale that had built up in the boiler without MWT had largely disappeared when the line from the boiler WITHOUT MWT was put into the system that did have MWT.
In this paper, they also analyzed the scale that built up in the two systems by cross section morphology, i.e. a giant microscope of the crystals. The crystals from the MWT system were similar, though the sizes of the crystals were MUCH smaller than those crystals found in the boiler that didnt have MWT treatment.
I still am leery of this technology, however, I still am interested since I had what I presume to be aragonite build up on the hot water line to my dishwasher that all but made it ineffective. MWT it appears that it
HAS indeed caught the eye of the science community, a community that wants to go 'green' and is looking for ways to purify water with as little effort as possible. Then again, this technology DOES indeed threaten an industry that is already in place, so there WILL be lots of naysayers, mainly because it threatens their livelihood. Again, if any of you want this document, please message me and I will send you a PDF of the article from Chemical Engineering Science.