BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?

Subject: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 04:26 PM

For my own edification I need an answer.

The other night I was chatting with two friends and the question of hard water versus soft water came up. I used the phrase 'acid water' to describe 'soft' water, and they said, Oh, no, acid water is hard water.

So, have I been wrong lo, these many years? I'm aware that soft water isn't loaded with minerals thus sudses quickly while hard water tastes funny and doesn't suds easily. I also know that rain water is, by and large, soft. I know too that hardness is measured by ph, soft ranging to hard. But which is which? Alkaline versus Acid?

How do you define the terms and conditions?

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 04:55 PM

They are not the same spectrum. The addition of minerals, which are usually alkaline, to water, is what makes it hard. The hardness scale is not the same as the Ph scale as such, AFAIK.

In normal circumstances water does not get usually acid. SOft water is just purer water. In industrial environments water sometimes gets acidic (as in acid rain) on the Ph scale, but that doesn't make it softer.


AS

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 05:03 PM

OK, I follow that. Does 'acid rain' suds easily? See, I'm still fixated on that...

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Peace
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 05:08 PM

Hard and soft water. (So simple I actually understood it.)

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 05:09 PM

I don't know what the addition of acid does to surfactants. I would suspect it makes bubbles just as easily but which last much less long, but that's just a wild-assed guess.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Peace
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 05:13 PM

Pic of hard water.

Pic of soft water.

I will move on to acid/alkalie/alkalye/alchalie and the other real soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 05:15 PM

The link says - thanks, Peace - that soft water has been treated, implying that it was purposefully done but why is rain water so soft?

What is 'sweet' water? Alkaline or acid? I know that lime is added to soil to balance its ph but is that called 'sweetening' it?

See, I'm still uninformed and uneducated. It appears - thanks, Amos - that acid and alkaline are not the terms to use.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 05:17 PM

Wikipedia is a good place to look for answers to this sort of question. It usually has enough technical information for those who have a science background, but explained in terms which a non scientist has a chance of understanding. Try here - BLICKY(PEDIA).

In a nutshell, Hard Water is alkaline.

In Bradford, the city where I grew up, the main reservoir, Scar House, was built in moorland overlying sandstone. Rain which fell landed on moss and peat, running over the sand and grit stone. The result was extremely soft water.
A friend who was in the motor trade relates once having the tap water tested and proving that it was soft enough to be used for topping up car batteries. He didn't need to buy or produce distilled water for the job.

A few miles down the road, Leeds had reservoirs in a slightly different location. The water in their reservoir catchment landed on moorland overlying limestone. The lime dissolves the calcium carbonate and is hard.

Natural rain is slightly acidic. It contains carbonic acid (from carbon dioide in the atmosphere dissolving in the water).
This will dissolve limestone producing hard water.
Acid rain is usually a result of Sulphuric acid and/or Nitric acid produced as a result of human activity, coal fired power and various industrial processes.
Acid rain dissolves the limestone faster, but is neutralised in the process.

Hope some of that helps.

Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Peace
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 05:20 PM

Don't confuse any of this with Bob Dylan's "Hard Rain". He was waxing his metaphoricals.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 05:26 PM

Couple of typing errors or missed out bits.
Sandstone is mainly silica and does not dissolve to any appreciable extent in rain water.

The lime dissolves the calcium carbonate should have read "The water dissolves the calcium carbonate" or possibly "The lime is dissolved by the rain water"

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Grab
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 05:39 PM

Ebbie, where do you get "sweet water" from? I'd assume that's just another name for soft water, right? Still, at least you can tell your friends they're wrong and you were right! :-)

To add to Geoff's list, there's another major source of water - ground-water. This is water that's sat in permeable rock under the earth. Sometimes this water has been sat around for a *very* long time; sometimes it's arrived relatively recently. But permeable rock usually equals limestone, and it's been sat there for a while, so you can expect it to be very hard indeed.

Rainwater is indeed slightly acidic. So is our body though - all animal fats AFAIK are acidic, and skin, hair and all the external parts of our body need their accompanying layer of grease to stay healthy. Hence some skincare products mention pH5.5, which is the same (average) acidity as skin grease.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 05:46 PM

What kind of wax do you use on metaphoricals?

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 06:07 PM

Can-Know-bwah wax, I think....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Santa
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 06:21 PM

Hard water tastes funny? No....hard water has a taste. Soft water is tasteless. Bit yucky to drink, really.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 06:33 PM

I'm a hard water freek... Maybe that's 'cause of the "acid" I took in the 60's... Maybe not... Who cares...

First of all, I don't think of water as bein' acid or alkyline... Hard an' soft, yeah...

Hard water has lots of stuff in it... Like iron and lime and minerals that is all goood for ya' and make ya better musicians...

Plus, when you go to takin' a shower in hard water it rinses the soap off ya' real ggod so you don't end up with soap scum growin' on ya' after the shower...

That's my take on it... Plus, it tastes better... Not as good a beer, but better...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 06:39 PM

Santa is correct. The various impurities in the water are what give it taste.
Our water is extremely hard, calcium and magnesium carbonates, but the taste is good. It is 'hard' on humidifiers and the like, many people use some device at the tap. Others use water softening equipment. We found that for most purposes this was a waste of money; better to buy distilled water at the grocery for the steam iron and to clean your lps, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 08:06 PM

To correct any false impression I may have generated through my own muzziness: water CAN be acid or alkaline. Rainwater is slightly acid, adding minerals (as by ground filtering it) can make it more and more alkaline.

I dunno what adding acidity to already soft water would do, aside from making it more acid. I don't think it would make it more soft.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 08:06 PM

"Can-Know-bwah " Amos

That's how I felt, Amos. I know SO much more now. :)

Where do I get the term, "sweet water", Grab? I think I was referring to the soil- which I think is accomplished by making it more alkaline. Not sure, though. However, theree are many place names called 'Sweet Water'.

"Hard water tastes funny? No....hard water has a taste. Soft water is tasteless. Bit yucky to drink, really." Santa

lol I was born in North Dakota where the water is alkaline- downright hard. The story goes that a young ND cousin of mine was visiting relatives in another state and he complained about the water. It doesn't stink right, he said.

Me, I like Juneau's water- cool, brisk, crystalline.

"to clean your lps" Clean your "lips", Q? hmmmm

Geoff, thanks. Good job.

Quack!

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Grab
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 09:44 PM

I guess any drinkable water tastes pretty sweet when you're 200 miles from anywhere and you've found a spring just before your barrels run dry. :-/

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 10:07 PM

lps- LPs! - them big round pancakes one puts on a turntable. An' keep yer cotton-pickin lips off my LPs!

Them little silvery things got no place fer the needle to go and the hole in the middle is too damn big. Dunno how one gits music off uv 'em.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 10:23 PM

When teaching about rain aboard Clearwater, we explain that acid rain is usually a result of sulfur emissions from powerplants to the west of us, carried aloft and turned into Sulfuric Acid [but very dilute] and rained down.

Various minterals in exposed rock, especially limestone, interact with the acid rain and neutralize before it even gets to the river.

There are bogs and other sites which do not have limestone/marble in structure accessible to the acid rain. In those sites, you often see a lot of dead plants and trees standing forlorn.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 10:35 PM

Eb:

AFAIK, one of the great risks in crossing the native deserts was running out of water OR finding water that was so alkali it was toxic. Sweet water was any water that was fewsh and potable and "alive" with oxygen, and not too alkaline.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Slag
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 10:52 PM

All pretty much right on in all the contributions. Ion exchange is probably the overall process or set of processes which describe what is going on in the water cycle. At the surface of the ocean is the first exchange. The water is in constant contact with one of the most reactive elements in our world, oxygen. In general the water becomes oxygenated and this is great for all the little fishies in the deep blue sea. On occasion an actual chemical reaction takes place and H20 becomes H2O2, hydrogen peroxide. The prefix "per" indicates an over abundance of an element, in this case oxygen, and that makes the compound unstable. Pure H2O2 is extremely dangerous and has been used as a component in rocket fuel, sometimes with disastrous results. The excess oxygen makes H2O2 a base, as opposed to acid. Any water anywhere on earth exposed to normal atmosphere will naturally have a percentage of H2O2 and over time the water will tend to neutralize any acids present.

As evaporation takes place, pure water in the form of vapor and is whisked off into the wild blue yonder. When it runs into colder air it precipitates out as droplets or ice crystals. This usually occurs around microscopic dust motes or other heavier aerosols present in the atmosphere. It takes about eight times the presence of moisture for this to occur without the foreign matter present so almost all atmospheric water is not entirely pure.

The aerosols tend to be acidic in nature. Sulfur from volcanoes and under refined fossil fuels react with the water and oxygen and form sulfuric acid. Present also are carbonic acid and a slew of others. These bind the oxygen atoms and give rain a slightly acid ph. Around industrial centers and large cities (down wind) the increase in ph can be dramatic, almost as acidic as lemon juice! Take a walk through an old cemetery and try to read some of the old marble (Calcium oxides) markers! That is the result of chemical reaction, not mechanical weathering.

At any rate this acidic solution hits the compounds which make up the crust of the earth. These elements are mostly bases as they are either chemically inert or weak chemical reactors. Iron, calcium, manganese, magnesium and so on are base because of the abundance of oxygen which is weakly bound to them. The acid hits and ions are transferred and the water becomes harder as these minerals go into solution. In chemistry water is known as the Universal Solvent. Any thing, ANYTHING dissolves in water. This includes platinum, gold, silver and glass. Given enough time, water dissolves anything. Hence water tends to become base or hard once it reaches land. The exceptions are, as noted above in other posts where it reaches forest detritus, peat and other types of organic deposits. Here the ph tends to remain on the acidic side of the equation.

There is really much more science to this subject but that, in a coconut shell is the basics.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 10:52 PM

fewsh==fresh

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 11:14 PM

If Big Mick is around, he may remember, years back, the well water from the old fashioned pump at the rest area on I-96, around Muskegon--it was hard, rusty water with a strong taste of hydrogen sulfide--

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Slag
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 11:32 PM

Hydrogen sulfide in a common "ailment" of water which stands for some time in a iron oxide rich environment. It is the classical "rotten egg" small and is caused by sulfur being leaached from the iron. Sulfur readily combines with iron in nature but it is a weak chemical bond.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:15 AM

Thank goodness you came back with the correction, Amos. I was feeling like I just about had a handle on the subject- and then you came up with 'fewsh'.

Thanks, everyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Slag
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:19 AM

small should be "smell" Thank you spell check. I spelled small correctly.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Micca
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:18 AM

Ebbie, I live in London where the water is fairly "Hard" a number of years ago I rented a cottage in Scotland in a VERY soft water area, on the firsst morning I jumped in the shower and used the same amount of shampoo as I did at home and in a few moments the shower cubicle was FULL to chest height(I know, not very high in my case) with white foam!!!! it took ages to get rid of it.

BTW as a Chemist, the reason you get scale in kettles is because there are 2 kinds of "hardness" in water temporary (due to Bicarbonate) and permanent due to the presence of carbonate (mostly of Calcium and Magnesium) when you boil the water the temporary hardness(bicarbonate which is very soluble) breaks down and forms carbonate, which is MUCH less soluble and comes out of solution , to form lime scale(Calcium carbonate is chemically the same as Marble)

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 06:50 AM

Correct me if I'm off beam, Micca, but the definition of hard water is that the calcium or magnesium is dissolved in the water.
If you add an acid, which keeps the mineral in solution, then the water must still be defined as Hard, but would still be acidic.
You get rid of the hardness by making the mineral precipitate out of the water - by boiling "temporary" hardness (and forming lime scale in your kettle) or by converting soap into scum, thereby removing "permanent" hardness.
This would mean that it would be feasible to produce acidic "hard water". Likewise adding some sodium hydroxide to soft rainwater would make that alkaline, but not make it "hard".

SO - in a natural situation, because of the nature of the rocks and soil associated with Hard and Soft water, we would expect hard water to be alkaline and Soft water to be acidic.
BUT - in an artificial situation it would be possible for the reverse to be true.

Wonderful thing, science...
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 07:22 AM

The water where I live is slightly acidic (I have a 200' deep well which was drilled when I moved here 7 yrs ago), about 5.2pH I think. Anyway, the result in my tapwater was a sulphury smell and taste and orange-coloured scale left on sinks, wash-basins toilets and clothes (iron)! To get round the problem, I installed a filter tank full of limestone chips which a)filters out the iron and b)neutralises the acidity so that I get fairly neutral water now and no scale ( apart from a very small amount of lime-scale in the kettle which I put up with, it's far less of a problem than the iron was!)

Subject: RE: BS: Water:Soft vs Hard = Acid vs Alkaline?
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 10:37 AM

I noted an odd thing in Fairbanks last week. It seemed to take unusually long to wash out the detergent from dishes. It felt somewhat slimy and it seemed to cling.

I asked someone about it and he conjectured that the city removes the mineral from its water because, he said, he knows that the surrounding area's water is very hard.