What is Water Filtration and Disinfection?
Dec 05, 2024
It is important to drink clean water for a number of reasons. While most people think that their tap water is clean and safe, it often contains contaminants that, over time, can adversely affect health. There are two ways you can make tap water safe for drinking—disinfection and filtration. But what is water disinfection? And what is water filtration?
You can install home purification or filtration systems to ensure you have healthy drinking water. Before you decide on a system, it is important to understand the difference between them. Many companies make products that effectively do the same thing but label them differently. One product takes the name purifier, and the other takes the name advanced filtration system.
Culligan’s ZeroWater filters are water filtration systems that are certified to reduce 99.7% of lead, 95% of the forever chemicals PFOA/PFOS, and 99.9% of total dissolved solids (TDS) to provide cleaner, healthier drinking water.
In this blog, we explain the difference between water filtration and water disinfection.
What is water disinfection?
One of the most frequent questions we get at Culligan’s ZeroWater is, “What is water disinfection?”
Water disinfection is often misunderstood. Many people believe the process makes water pure, free of any contaminants. However, this is not entirely accurate.
Water disinfection is a purification process that removes harmful or unhealthy elements from water but doesn’t eliminate all impurities. It uses chemicals such as chlorine to neutralise disease-causing contaminants.
What is water filtration?
The following question we get is, “What is water filtration?”. Filtration is the process of removing unwanted particles from water using a filtration system.
A filtration system acts as a sieve removing physical particles from the water. While some filters can remove bacteria, they may not remove viruses, as viruses are smaller than bacteria.
There are two common filtration systems available:
- Activated carbon filters
- Sediment filters
Often, the two are combined to create a thorough filtration system that removes a wide range of contaminants from the water.
Sediment filters remove contaminants by size, effectively removing larger particles. However, some contaminants like dissolved pharmaceuticals, unwanted minerals, and viruses are too small to be trapped by the filters, which means that they pass straight through them.
Therefore, most filtration systems also use activated carbon filters to eliminate contaminants. Activated carbon filters are very effective as the filters trap carbon-based particles passing through them.
As many of the harmful contaminants in water are carbon-based particles, this is an effective step to making the water safer and healthier to drink.
What is the difference between water disinfection and water filtration?
Even if you now understand what water filtration is and what water disinfection is, understanding the differences is a step further.
| Water Filtration | Water Disinfection |
|---|---|
| The process of removing physical impurities, particles, and sediment from water. | The process of killing or deactivating harmful microorganisms like bacteria and viruses. |
| To improve water clarity and remove visible contaminants. | To make water safe for consumption by eliminating biological hazards. |
| Physical barriers (e.g., sand filters, activated carbon, membranes). | Chemical or physical methods (e.g., chlorination, UV light, ozonation). |
| Removes suspended solids, dirt, and some dissolved substances. | Destroys pathogens that can cause diseases. |
| Reverse osmosis, sediment filters, or carbon filters. | Chlorine, ozone, ultraviolet (UV) light, or boiling. |
| Does not eliminate microorganisms or chemical pollutants entirely. | Does not remove physical impurities like dirt or sediment. |
Choosing water filtration or water disinfection
When considering having a quality water improvement system, such as a water filtration system or disinfection system, it is important to test the quality of your water by testing for specific contaminants.
If you find that you have more physical impurities (e.g., dirt, sediment, rust), then you should choose a water filter system. If your water is contaminated with viruses and bacteria, a disinfection system would be better.
Shop for the right hardware that will treat your water. You can ask for a professional opinion to help you get the best system.
Online stores have a broad selection of products, such as water filter jugs to suit various filtration needs.
The water we drink should nourish the body and not expose us to further contaminants. Understanding the difference between water disinfection and filtration helps you make the right choice on the best system to treat your water.
Water filtration with Culligan’s ZeroWater
Hopefully, having read this article, you have answers to the questions:
- What is water filtration?
- What is water disinfection?
With this knowledge, you should be able to decide which type of system would be best for the water you have access to.
Culligan’s ZeroWater offers you reliable water filter jugs, dispensers, and stainless steel bottles.
Replacing the filters is easy, and you can subscribe to our subscription service to receive savings on your replacements too.
Our advanced 5-stage technology uses ion-exchange filtration to remove 99.9% of Total Dissolved Solids as well as 99.7% of lead and 95% of the forever chemicals PFOA/PFOS.
Contact us for more information or browse our online store to buy your water filter jug, dispenser or water bottle today.
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