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'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

citynews.ca

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Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#71

Post by zzazzdsa »

jcranmer wrote: post #31
stagbeetle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not use livestrong as a source. If the pictures are true to the situation, the concentrations are tiny. You can look up videos of people putting less than a teaspoon into water to get the same result. IIRC, PP can be a precursor to chlorine. But, you're comparing two different chemicals here and what applies to one likely doesn't apply to another. There is a chance your skin will feel like it's burning if it'…

> IIRC, PP can be a precursor to chlorine. Converting KMnO₄ to Cl¯ would require a nuclear reaction. Chlorides are generally soluble, so it's not going to cause an insoluble salt to slowly dissolve as a permanganate salt precipitates instead. It does appear to be a stronger oxidizing agent than Cl₂ (and Cl¯ and ClO¯ and ClO₂¯), but there are likely better reducing agents in most water than dissolved chlorine ions.

For what it's worth, permanganate is an extremely strong oxidizer (probably the second strongest stable solid oxidant known, after persulfate), but at neutral pH it is unable to oxidize chloride to hypochlorite and beyond. (The electrode potentials are too close, and anyways the maganese dioxide byproduct turns hypochlorite to chloride and oxygen.) Instead of reacting with a reducing agent in water, (the main possibilities are simple organics and ferrous iron, and these turn to carbon dioxide or insoluble ferric oxide [sidenote: this is why permanganate is added to water in the first place]) permanganate tends to break down to oxygen and manganese dioxide, which settles out.

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#72

Post by zzazzdsa »

A lot of the posts here seem to be missing something important: permanganate is an EXTREMELY vividly colored ion in solution. The bright colors of the water in the pictures is about in line with what a 20 ppm permanganate solution looks like. Considering manganese is an essential trace mineral (although it is neurotoxic above a certain point, the amounts in the water are minimal), I doubt there is any real toxic effect caused by drinking the water. Permanganate is a very strong oxidizer, but it is not much stronger than the commonly used chlorine and chlorine dioxide to be of concern (and it's weaker than ozone anyways).

The whole reason permanganate is added in the first place is twofold: it oxidizes simple organics all the way to carbon dioxide (think nail polish remover, denatured alcohol), and it oxidizes soluble ferrous iron to insoluble ferric iron. The byproduct of the oxidation, manganese dioxide, is insoluble and if balanced correctly the treatment does not increase manganese levels in the water.

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#73

Post by zzazzdsa »

mudil wrote: post #30

I love potassium permanganate. Growing up in Soviet Union, we used to add potassium permanganate to bath, supposedly to clean your skin. But I love it for its oxidizing properties. Mix potassium permanganate with magnesium shavings, and you have a pretty powerful explosive mixture. Put a drop or two of glycerine into potassium permanganate and glycerine spontaneously burns. There are tons of interesting experiments y…

When mixed with sulfuric acid, it forms manganese heptoxide, which does lovely things like ignite paper on contact and detonate if heated above 50 C!

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#74

Post by oxide »

zzazzdsa wrote: post #72

A lot of the posts here seem to be missing something important: permanganate is an EXTREMELY vividly colored ion in solution. The bright colors of the water in the pictures is about in line with what a 20 ppm permanganate solution looks like. Considering manganese is an essential trace mineral (although it is neurotoxic above a certain point, the amounts in the water are minimal), I doubt there is any real toxic effe…

>The whole reason permanganate is added in the first place is twofold: it oxidizes simple organics all the way to carbon dioxide (think nail polish remover, denatured alcohol), and it oxidizes soluble ferrous iron to insoluble ferric iron. The byproduct of the oxidation, manganese dioxide, is insoluble and if balanced correctly the treatment does not increase manganese levels in the water.

Whenever I learn something like this, I always appreciate chemistry a little more. That is absolutely fascinating IMO.

The first thing that comes to mind is what the person who came up with the idea was doing at the time. Sometimes when we are intending to do one thing, we invent a solution to another problem, maybe one we didn't even know we had, along the way.

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#75

Post by Jaruzel »

ollie87 wrote: post #70
Jaruzel wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chlorine in water will evaporate into the air if left in an open container; Pour yourself a glass of water, and let it stand for 30-60 minutes. It should then taste a LOT less Chlorine-y. Even in a sealed container you shouldn't be able to taste it after about 3 days. This is why water from a mains pipe tastes of chlorine, but the same water pumped into a water tank (for heating etc), doesn't.

In my house if you leave a glass of water on the side a cat will jump up and start drinking it/playing with it. I use a Brita filter instead.

Brita filter for the win. We do too, and then we boil it, then use it for tea/coffee and cooking.

For cold drinks; bottled water. We go through a ton of it.

The joys of living in London (UK) and it's crappy water :(

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#76

Post by joncrocks »

Jaruzel wrote: post #75
ollie87 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my house if you leave a glass of water on the side a cat will jump up and start drinking it/playing with it. I use a Brita filter instead.

Brita filter for the win. We do too, and then we boil it, then use it for tea/coffee and cooking. For cold drinks; bottled water. We go through a ton of it. The joys of living in London (UK) and it's crappy water :(

It's hard water, yes, but otherwise OK.

Having lived in London most of my life, and spent a few years in the US (MI), I can tell you we've got it good. I used to use bottled water in the US as I didn't enjoy drinking chlorine flavour/smelling water...

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#77

Post by noir_lord »

Jaruzel wrote: post #75
ollie87 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my house if you leave a glass of water on the side a cat will jump up and start drinking it/playing with it. I use a Brita filter instead.

Brita filter for the win. We do too, and then we boil it, then use it for tea/coffee and cooking. For cold drinks; bottled water. We go through a ton of it. The joys of living in London (UK) and it's crappy water :(

I'm up in Yorkshire, our water is so hard it beats up the kettle, pipes, taps and washing machines on the way through.

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#79

Post by Ntrails »

Jaruzel wrote: post #75
ollie87 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my house if you leave a glass of water on the side a cat will jump up and start drinking it/playing with it. I use a Brita filter instead.

Brita filter for the win. We do too, and then we boil it, then use it for tea/coffee and cooking. For cold drinks; bottled water. We go through a ton of it. The joys of living in London (UK) and it's crappy water :(

The water is completely fine here. I'd not blame anyone for using a brita filter or something to save the kettle - but you're just throwing away water and energy on bottled water...

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#80

Post by senorjazz »

noir_lord wrote: post #77
Jaruzel wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brita filter for the win. We do too, and then we boil it, then use it for tea/coffee and cooking. For cold drinks; bottled water. We go through a ton of it. The joys of living in London (UK) and it's crappy water :(

I'm up in Yorkshire, our water is so hard it beats up the kettle, pipes, taps and washing machines on the way through.

I used to live in Leeds and used the water for a few gardening projects were the PH of the water was very important so was also testing it, it was always perfect, never had to modify.

Now, when I lived in Hull, terrible water

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