Patent Application
20060226064
This invention relates to water filtration devices for drinking and cooking water and especially to pitchers and carafes containing improved filtration systems for treatment of potable water to remove taste, odor and trace contaminants.
Water sources for drinking water are typically reservoirs fed by rivers and wells. The water is inevitably contaminated by natural and man-made chemicals which are removed in large part at public or private water treatment facilities. Carafe or Pitcher Filter systems recently have supplanted all other point-of-use filters for the consumer market, both in numbers and sheer dollar value. The popularity of these carafe or pitcher systems derives from the convenience and ease of treatment by the consumers, typically in the kitchen environment, of water for drinking or for cooking purposes obtained from a water treatment facility or well. Modern advances in hygiene in the developed world owe much to the chlorination of drinking water. Chlorination of drinking water, developed by Abel Wolman in the early 1920's, is credited with dramatically reducing the morbidity and mortality caused by microbiological diseases in the population by reducing or eliminating the presence of microbiological contamination in the water. To keep pace with this increasing contamination of the sources of drinking water, Municipalities and Water Authorities have resorted to increased levels of chlorination. As a result the water increasingly smells and tastes of chlorine. The success of the carafe filter in recent times owes much to its ability to reduce taste and odor of chlorine in water at the point of its end use, usually the kitchen. This improvement in taste is very noticeable to consumers for drinking water and for water used for cooking. Besides the microbiological contamination of the source water, the same urban growth has also caused contamination with heavy metals, solvents, pharmaceuticals and pesticides. The Carafe or the Pitcher filter devices are able to treat these non-chlorine related contamination to some extent, but there are some problems in this area caused by the limitations of these carafe systems.
Numerous patents related to treatment of drinking water in carafes and pitchers may be found in International Classification BO1D or US Class 210.
It is the object of the invention to provide a novel, high capacity filtration system for a carafe or pitcher for drinking water purification. It is a second object of the invention to provide convenience and capability to treat a more expanded list of contaminants from the water. It is the third objective of this invention to provide a method for the prevention of bacterial growth on the surfaces of the carafe or within the filter cartridges contained in it.
These and other objects of the invention are attained by using multiple filter cartridges having fine granular media such as activated carbon, alumina, titania, iron oxide and cation exchange resins and by treating the plastic surfaces with antimicrobial additives and suspending pellets containing antimicrobial additives in contact with the granular media. The lifetime of the cartridges is determined by an electronic counter on the carafe, which gives a visual indication of the amount of water, which has been treated and the remaining capacity of the filters.
The conventional prior art pitcher for a water purification system is shown in
Element 13 represents an indicator for exhaustion of the filter. Third party independent organizations such as NSF International (NSF), Underwriters Laboratories (UL), or Water Quality Association (WQA) certify various water filtration devices for their volume capacity to remove contaminants from the volume of water treated before a subject contaminant achieves breakthrough. Element 13 shows a monthly elapsed time indicator. These indicators can be either mechanical or electronic in design. There are ANSI/NSF Standards for certification of water treatment devices that specify the methodology for determining the breakthrough for each contaminant. The manufacturers of these devices obtain certification from these Independent Laboratories for breakthrough volume for the contaminants under various ANSI/NSF Standards.
Typically, the reservoir for the untreated water contains 1-2 liters of water and for the practical reasons this quantity of water must be filtered or treated by the intervening filter cartridge under gravity at the rate of 150 to 450/cc/min. Flow rates slower than 150 cc/min would be considered inconvenient by the user, and while flow rates faster than 350 will be appreciated by the user, one is confronted by the limitation of the granular material in the filter cartridge to treat the water fast enough. The filter cartridge contains granular material designed to remove specific impurities or contaminants from the water.
Depending on the nature of contaminant, appropriate material having chemical and/or physical affinity for that contaminant is used. One of the most common granular media used to remove chlorine, taste and odor form the water is the granular activated charcoal (carbon). It is also used to remove dissolved organic impurities such as insecticides, herbicides and organic solvents of various kinds that find their way into the sources of drinking water. Dissolved heavy metals such as lead, mercury, copper, zinc, arsenic etc. are also increasingly found in the sources of drinking water that are highly toxic to human beings. The granular media used to treat these dissolved heavy metals usually are various kinds of synthetic and proprietary ion exchange resins. Besides these two types, there are other contaminants such as nitrates, perchlorates, and various kinds of pharmaceuticals that require special kinds of granular media such as green sand, alumina, silica, titania, iron oxide, specialized synthetic ion exchange resins and other proprietary media.
In a typical application involving granular media, water containing the impurity is contacted with the media to adsorb the impurity onto the media and thus purity the said water. The effectiveness of this operation depends on the adsorption capacity of the media for the particular impurity and the contact time during which the media has the chance to remove the impurity from the water. Even with the optimum adsorption capability of the media for the impurity, if the contact time with the media is insufficient, the impurity from the water will not be fully removed.
In filtration technology, the Empty-Bed-Contact-Time (EBCT) expresses these kinds of solid/liquid contact considerations quantitatively. EBCT is a ratio of the volume of filter cartridge containing the granular media and the flow rate of water through it. (e.g.-volume in cc of filter cartridge filled with media divided by cc/min flow rate). The resultant ratio gives time in minutes that the untreated water is in contact with the media. Whether the treatment device is pressurized or not, it makes a big difference in the EBCT, as the former usually have higher flow rate resulting in the EBCT that is much smaller. THE EBCT for the pressurized systems are usually in the neighborhood of 1-10 sec, whereas the gravity flow systems such as the carafe or pitcher filters have EBCT that is one or two orders of magnitude higher—10-100 sec. For comparison, the EBCT for large industrial or municipal applications using granular media in large columns or vessels is 5-15 minutes. Here the vessels or columns containing the media can be made as large (usually arranged in series) to achieve the flow rate of 20 to 50 gallons per minute (gpm) with adequate EBCT to effectively remove the contaminant. The flow rates of pressurized Point-of-Use filter devices are usually in the range of 0.5 to 2 gpm, while those of the pitcher filters re 0.04 to 0.12 gpm (150-450 cc/min).
Different contaminants require different contact times with the media, as some adsorption reactions are mainly on the surface, such as in case of chlorine removal while others such as ion exchange for soluble metal removal are controlled by diffusion within the meso and micropores of the media. Thus EBCT for effective removal of various contaminants vary drastically and at a given EBCT not all contaminates are removed with the same degree of efficiency.
Element 113 is an indicator of the volume of water which passes through the filters based upon the amount added. In this embodiment, it is an event register indicating the number of times that upper chamber 117 has been filled. The invention is not limited specifically by the manner in which the treated volume is determined.
The use of multiple filters provides many benefits not found in older single filter pitchers. Firstly, greater capacity is obtained by greater mass of filter material. Secondly, greater capacity is obtained by the use of finer filter granules which have a greater effective surface area. Thirdly, the filtration rate is not changed, meaning that the user does not have an unacceptable delay in obtaining purified water. Finally, the greater capacity means that the filters are used up less frequently and the time consuming set-up and conditioning procedures normally required for new filters are needed only infrequently.
In a preferred embodiment, the filter medium contains flow facilitators such as pelletized plastic dispersing particles which prevent compaction of the filter media. In a more preferred embodiment, the pelletized plastic dispersant particles contain a bacteriacide or bacteriastat such as 2-phenylphenol, 2,4,4′-trichloro-2′-hydroxydiphenol ether (triclosan), zinc 2-mercaptopyridine-N-oxide, zinc or sodium Omadine®), biguanides such as poly(hexamethylene biguanide) hydrochloride (PHMB), N-alkyl-N,N-dimethyl-N-benzylammonium chloride and silver-zinc zeolites and a combination of two or more of these. In a most preferred embodiment, the pitcher and filter housings that come in contact with water are formed from an antimicrobial plastic.
The compositions of the filter media are not specifically limited and may be adapted to treat any contaminant for which a specific solid treatment medium is available. Heavy metals and VOC's are the preferred targets in most drinking water supplies from a health standpoint, although most people are more concerned about taste and smell.
With the use of this Carafe system we have been able to achieve the following novel results.
The invention finds utility in the removal of toxic metals and organic solvents and pesticides from water used for drinking and cooking. In addition, reduction in undesirable taste and odor makes food and drink more palatable.
The invention has been described in terms of preferred embodiments. Changes and improvements apparent to those with skill in the art are subsumed within the scope of this invention.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60664544 | Mar 2005 | US |
