Science of Water Desalination with Hydrosmart

MECHANISM AND SCOPE

In practical terms, Hydrosmart is most often used for water desalination and…

Overview: Slide 9

 

  1. Salinity, brackish borewater
  2. Scale and mineral buildup
  3. Iron rich water
  4. Poor soil, poor plant growth
  5. Struggling livestock

 

This is achieved by increasing the dissolution (dissolving) of charged compounds in the water, or more technically “the hydration state of solutes”. Further detail on hydration and water desalination is introduced in the info box.

Specific case studies and trials on applications (1) through (5) are available.

In the cases of applications (1) through (3), the enhanced dissolution of minerals and salts has predictable effects for remediation of common hard water problems. For instance, limescale (chemical symbol CaCO3) is a salt of calcium (Ca2+) and carbonate (CO32-) and is removed gradually from pipes and emitters after installing the unit, to the point where the infrastructure becomes serviceable again. This outcome is assisted by Hydrosmart’s action of converting carbonate to bicarbonate.

Before-and-after comparisons are graphic, reflected in testimonials from farmers and miners, homeowners and local councils, as well as every kind of business in between. Salinity and water desalination is remediated by several processes, including the favouring of new calcium associations over sodium associations.

In the cases of application: (4) successfully growing plants in poor soils; and application (5), hard-water livestock issues; enhanced dissolution of solutes increases the bioavailability of nutrients that are already present, whether in the soil or in the rumen, leading to the improved growth outcomes for plants and livestock alike. If soils are so poor that fertilisers need to be added, Hydrosmart improves the bioavailability of those fertilisers.

water desalination

Dissolution or “hydration” of nutrients is a necessary precursor to their absorption by living organisms.

To state it simply, while nutrients in the soil, water and rumen are naturally at a certain level of bioavailability, Hydrosmart increases the bioavailability further, through enhanced dissolution.

Through extensive R&D, Hydrosmart has: pioneered these findings, established the mechanisms, and widened the uses of the technology from simply (2), to now also (1) through (5).

From large corporates specialising in mineral issues, to individual homeowners, and every size of operation in between, Hydrosmart units are available for every pipe size.

Information

Scientific quality control at Hydrosmart is ongoing and rigorous, as is product development. The technology itself hails from empirical research. The products are tried and tested across many industrial and agricultural disciplines.

The mechanism of Hydrosmart’s action falls within standard physical chemistry descriptions. Briefly, Hydrosmart uses electric fields (and to a lesser extent magnetic fields) to target the charged compounds (or “solutes”) that are present in solution. Electric fields are modulated during the treatment by means of computer-chip controlled circuitry. A precise range of frequencies are produced that can penetrate deep into water (inches and feet of depth) in a pipe, which results in the bond-breaking effects.

Hydrosmart increases hydration, by loosening the transient bonds between solutes. Additionally, the treatment also slows down formation of new bonds. Charged compounds are maintained in an optimally hydrated state for a longer time than they would be in the absence of Hydrosmart.

Many solutes are already well dissolved in natural ground water, but also it is empirically found that some solutes in the ground water exhibit what physical chemists call “non-ideal behaviour”, defined as the interaction of positively and negatively charged particles in the water. The factors at play in the interaction of solutes are the concentrations of each solute, the types of solutes, as well as the length of time that the solutes have had to interact underground, often a very long time.

Non-ideal behavior leads to sharing of secondary hydration shells between charged solutes.

Hydrosmart targets not only the charged solutes but also the water itself via the dipole on each water molecule. Targeting the water dipole as well, allows the secondary hydration shells of the charged compounds to be even more efficiently disentangled from each other.

By separating the solvent shells of hydrated solutes from each other, the bioavailability of nutrients is increased, both in the soil and in rumen, relative to that which can be achieved with untreated water. Similarly, the treatment improves the activation (availability) of fertilisers that a Hydrosmart owner may have added to soil.

Efficacy is not limited to borewater. Hydrosmart also affects the availability of fertiliser that the user has added to rainwater. When tested via hydroponics, plant fresh weights were found to be substantially improved by the treatment. As such the effect is general: while Hydrosmart responds most significantly to higher concentrations of dissolved compounds, it is also widely used on relatively low TDS/EC water, with no lower limits.

WHITE PAPERS

Indepth technical paper on how Hydrosmart works.
Technical paper on Hydrosmart in Mining applications.

LABORATORY TRAILS

The influence of Hydrosmart commercially available scale-treatment devices on calcium ion concentration in aqueous solution.
2016 – MC191 — Master of Environmental Science and Technology, Research Project 2016
Nov 2010 – Trials on lettuce in high salinity bore water.
Lettuce at 6,860 ppm salinity and still alive and healthy.
An explanation of the different areas of testing.

ONSITE TRIALS

A comparison between the responses of non-bearing seedless lemon trees to Hydrosmart treated (HS) and untreated (HSU), EC 1.1 dS/m (630 TDS) irrigation water.
Trial outcomes overall support a hypothesis (or “running model”) that Hydrosmart and RMIT scientists have recently been using to explain improvements in crop growth that microbes play a large role in the outcomes.
Scale elimination on heat exchangers aboard Norsky & Norstream vessels.
Feedback, questions and answers from units installed on boilers in hospitals in Adelaide.
Full report on initial installation results – Scale elimination on cooling towers.
Growing strawberries in the desert with high salinity bore water 1750 ppm NaCl pH 7.5
A trial completed in Uleybury, SA comparing treated vs. untreated water for use growing Strawberries.
Growing turf in desert sand with 15,500 ppm bore water.
Results of trials on Barramundi tanks at Urrbrae Agricultural High School.
Treating effluent with high algae and mineral content.
Non-chemical tartrate removal from wine-making tanks.
A proposal for treating a fabric dying factory’s effluent.