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Any one have advise on Kati-Ani ??
- Thread starter malulu
- Start date
I looked into these Kati-Ani units years ago. If your interested here are a few links.
Here is a link with some general information. Note that I consider some of the comments suspect and questionable, so read it with a "grain of salt" (no pun intended) - http://www.wetwebmedia.com/katianidifaqs.htm
Here is a supplier of these units - http://www.purereefs.com/katiani.html
Note that they cost much more than a typical RO/DI unit. Also note the amount of water the combined unit can process.
SpectraPure also sells bulk resins for such units. See this link - http://www.spectrapure.com/St_replac_p5.htm
Recharging the units typically requires the use of muriatic acid and lye. See this link - http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.9902/msg00259.html
I consider these two very dangerous chemicals, and would rather not have to use them. My personal choice was for an RO/DI unit that uses a mixed bed DI filter after the RO filter. I feel that this is much better choice. Yes the RO section will produce about twice as much waste water as it does RO water, but in this area, tap water is not very expensive. Also, the RO filter will last for years, as long as you change the prefilters from time to time. I find the mixed bed DI filter needs to be replaced about 9 months to a year. An inline TDS meter lets me know.
Here is a link with some general information. Note that I consider some of the comments suspect and questionable, so read it with a "grain of salt" (no pun intended) - http://www.wetwebmedia.com/katianidifaqs.htm
Here is a supplier of these units - http://www.purereefs.com/katiani.html
Note that they cost much more than a typical RO/DI unit. Also note the amount of water the combined unit can process.
SpectraPure also sells bulk resins for such units. See this link - http://www.spectrapure.com/St_replac_p5.htm
Recharging the units typically requires the use of muriatic acid and lye. See this link - http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.9902/msg00259.html
I consider these two very dangerous chemicals, and would rather not have to use them. My personal choice was for an RO/DI unit that uses a mixed bed DI filter after the RO filter. I feel that this is much better choice. Yes the RO section will produce about twice as much waste water as it does RO water, but in this area, tap water is not very expensive. Also, the RO filter will last for years, as long as you change the prefilters from time to time. I find the mixed bed DI filter needs to be replaced about 9 months to a year. An inline TDS meter lets me know.
malulu
NJRC Member
Mike,
yeah, that would be great!! looking forward to such meeting... may be some where in Central NJ, so more members can be attend?
thx
DaveK,
my main concern is i can't stand the wasted water... (regardless of the cost) it is like letting the faucet running all the time and not shutting it off... I have about 450g of total water volume and need water change about 35 gals a week, that is about 70g waste water down the drain! storing those good "waste" water for some other purpose to use - like flowering, dish, or cloth washing are simply not practical... hence been looking for something that have very LOW waste water unit.
according to the flyer i get from the frag swap, it cost must less to operate as $0.003 per gallon compared to R/O of $0.072 per gallon?
i did read the http://www.wetwebmedia.com/katianidifaqs.htm (found from google) before i post this thread, and did not see much valueable info out of it.
I will read the rest of the links later. thx for all the great info...
best regards,
-david
yeah, that would be great!! looking forward to such meeting... may be some where in Central NJ, so more members can be attend?
thx
DaveK,
my main concern is i can't stand the wasted water... (regardless of the cost) it is like letting the faucet running all the time and not shutting it off... I have about 450g of total water volume and need water change about 35 gals a week, that is about 70g waste water down the drain! storing those good "waste" water for some other purpose to use - like flowering, dish, or cloth washing are simply not practical... hence been looking for something that have very LOW waste water unit.
according to the flyer i get from the frag swap, it cost must less to operate as $0.003 per gallon compared to R/O of $0.072 per gallon?
i did read the http://www.wetwebmedia.com/katianidifaqs.htm (found from google) before i post this thread, and did not see much valueable info out of it.
I will read the rest of the links later. thx for all the great info...
best regards,
-david
I run a kind of goofy combined RO/DI unit with multistage DI canisters. It's a 10 step unit with 3 DI stages; one is Kation, another Anion and then a combined canister. I don't find it hard to recharge the canisters but I work with chemicals a lot so take that for what it's worth.
I've flipped back and forth between normal RO/DI and Kati-Ani systems over the years and find the water quality better with a good RO/DI unit. Some of the things the membrane takes out is hard for just the resins to do themselves. You also need a carbon pre-stage for chlorine's which some kati-ani setups don't have.
In my present system with multiple membranes it runs at 300g per day with about a 1:1 ratio which I can live with. But if I have an emergency I can bypass the membranes with a couple of valves and use the unit as a Kati-Ani system with pre-filtration (sediment and carbon) and make water up very, very quickly. Sort of the best of all worlds this way. Also I get to save DI cartridges this way since I can recharge them.
While I certainly don't want to talk anyone out of going Kati-Ani I would suggest doing some extensive reading on it and deciding if the water quality is good enough for you. You also want to calculate how fast you are going to go through the canisters before you need to recharge them. Think about this. In a typical 10" RO/DI unit you get about 2000 TDS gallons from a DI cartridge. That is to say you can clean 2000 TDS points of water. That could be 2000 gallons at 1 TDS or 1000g at 2 TDS or 200g at 10TDS. So if you have 100 TDS house water you are only going to get 20 gallons of good water before recharging.
Now keep in mind that's a typical DI cartridge and not separate Kati-Ani but the picture should still be clear. While the unit may be a 20" model instead of 10" and there are 2 chamber you're still only talking roughly 4 times the amount (unless it's also wider) that your typical DI canister will process in your present RO/DI unit.
It's the membrane on your current RO/DI unit that lowers the TDS and makes your DI cartridge last so long! When using the membrane instead of the DI stage seeing 100 TDS water it sees 4 TDS or lower (96+% rejection rate). That's a big difference in how long it lasts.
Another approach you could take if you don't like to waste water is pickup a piggy back membrane unit and a flush kit. By adding a piggy back membrane (same spec as main membrane) and feeding the waste of the first membrane into the 2nd you cut your waste water in half and double production.
If you don't HAVE TO run the unit with a float switch and if you can manually turn it on/off and have a flush kit you can adjust the waste ratio down. You just want to make sure to flush the unit for 30 seconds or so at the end of each fill up session. If you also piggy back the membranes you can get to about 1:1 without much trouble at all. 1:1 ratio is much easier to "swallow" then 4:1. Just a side note but during the summer I didn't really care about the waste water as I fed it into my pool to help with evap.
What I just described may sound like a lot of trouble but if you have the room to do it then picking up a whole 2nd RO/DI unit give you everything you need to build a really nice purification system still at much cheaper prices then a typical Kati-Ani system. You can run a couple of sediment filters and a couple of carbon filters before the membranes with a few canisters for DI purposes where you can run standard or Kati-Ani style. With some of the really cheap prices on eBay this can be done for roughly $100 or a know system like a Typhoon for around 2 bills.
If this is of interest to anyone I can show you my unit (2 RO/DI units combined) at this months meeting.
Carlo
I've flipped back and forth between normal RO/DI and Kati-Ani systems over the years and find the water quality better with a good RO/DI unit. Some of the things the membrane takes out is hard for just the resins to do themselves. You also need a carbon pre-stage for chlorine's which some kati-ani setups don't have.
In my present system with multiple membranes it runs at 300g per day with about a 1:1 ratio which I can live with. But if I have an emergency I can bypass the membranes with a couple of valves and use the unit as a Kati-Ani system with pre-filtration (sediment and carbon) and make water up very, very quickly. Sort of the best of all worlds this way. Also I get to save DI cartridges this way since I can recharge them.
While I certainly don't want to talk anyone out of going Kati-Ani I would suggest doing some extensive reading on it and deciding if the water quality is good enough for you. You also want to calculate how fast you are going to go through the canisters before you need to recharge them. Think about this. In a typical 10" RO/DI unit you get about 2000 TDS gallons from a DI cartridge. That is to say you can clean 2000 TDS points of water. That could be 2000 gallons at 1 TDS or 1000g at 2 TDS or 200g at 10TDS. So if you have 100 TDS house water you are only going to get 20 gallons of good water before recharging.
Now keep in mind that's a typical DI cartridge and not separate Kati-Ani but the picture should still be clear. While the unit may be a 20" model instead of 10" and there are 2 chamber you're still only talking roughly 4 times the amount (unless it's also wider) that your typical DI canister will process in your present RO/DI unit.
It's the membrane on your current RO/DI unit that lowers the TDS and makes your DI cartridge last so long! When using the membrane instead of the DI stage seeing 100 TDS water it sees 4 TDS or lower (96+% rejection rate). That's a big difference in how long it lasts.
Another approach you could take if you don't like to waste water is pickup a piggy back membrane unit and a flush kit. By adding a piggy back membrane (same spec as main membrane) and feeding the waste of the first membrane into the 2nd you cut your waste water in half and double production.
If you don't HAVE TO run the unit with a float switch and if you can manually turn it on/off and have a flush kit you can adjust the waste ratio down. You just want to make sure to flush the unit for 30 seconds or so at the end of each fill up session. If you also piggy back the membranes you can get to about 1:1 without much trouble at all. 1:1 ratio is much easier to "swallow" then 4:1. Just a side note but during the summer I didn't really care about the waste water as I fed it into my pool to help with evap.
What I just described may sound like a lot of trouble but if you have the room to do it then picking up a whole 2nd RO/DI unit give you everything you need to build a really nice purification system still at much cheaper prices then a typical Kati-Ani system. You can run a couple of sediment filters and a couple of carbon filters before the membranes with a few canisters for DI purposes where you can run standard or Kati-Ani style. With some of the really cheap prices on eBay this can be done for roughly $100 or a know system like a Typhoon for around 2 bills.
If this is of interest to anyone I can show you my unit (2 RO/DI units combined) at this months meeting.
Carlo
malulu said:
Keep in mind that you do not necessarily need to discard the waste water. You can use in to water the garden or lawn, wash the car, etc.
Also consider the other water that gets "wasted" around the house. Also, if you are going to recharge the cati-ani units, you'll need to clean up some really nasty chemicals, and this means flushing them with a lot of water.
Personally, I don't believe the flier you got at a swap. Unless they produce a detailed background with numbers, don't believe them. With all due respect, they have vested interests in that they are trying to sell you on the system.
malulu said:Carlo said:
Interesting... so, in theory, will it be ok to use ONE R/O, and piggy back 4 D/I? so there is no waste?
As Phyl mentioned it's adding the 2nd membrane that does it. However if you add additional DI cartridges you can get more pure water too. Just adding another catridge (IE Lowe's brand) for $15-20 with another DI cartridge will save you money long term because you can run the first DI cartridge until it's totally exhausted instead of changing it out as you normally do. Then when you change the DI cartridge you move the 2nd to the 1st position and put the new one in last (spot 2).
Carlo
Just thought I'd throw one more thing out concerning the chemicals. If you mix the two chemicals together after you have used them to recharge the resins they become neutral and aren't a concern. Unless you spill sprone (messy) it's real easy to recharge them without issue. I wouldn't be concerned with the recharging part of the process or put another way, I wouldn't NOT go with Kati-Ani because you need to recharge it as it's simple once you've done it once.
I cheat and have about 5 times the resin I need to for each cartridge. I use them and then charge them all at the same time. Makes it real easy that way.
Carlo
I cheat and have about 5 times the resin I need to for each cartridge. I use them and then charge them all at the same time. Makes it real easy that way.
Carlo
malulu
NJRC Member
regarding the recharge, got it, let's wait until mike's arrangement to see what will be next on this plan...
back to the piggy pack thing, i thought the reason for the waste water was because the D/I can not consume the water from R/O fast enough, therefore, adding a pressure pump will get more output and less waste... if this assumption is corrected, then I am thinking to use 1 R/O output connecting to 4 parallel D/I input? would this works?
???
thx
back to the piggy pack thing, i thought the reason for the waste water was because the D/I can not consume the water from R/O fast enough, therefore, adding a pressure pump will get more output and less waste... if this assumption is corrected, then I am thinking to use 1 R/O output connecting to 4 parallel D/I input? would this works?
???
thx
Quite a few guys are running their RO/DI similar to Carlo, or Duel RO's, piggy back, where the second RO takes on the waste water of the first RO, then to the DI. You can get recovery rates down to 1:1. It is the way to go if you have the sapce as Carlo brought up.
If you are interested in a Kati-Ani, which Anthony Calfo and Steve Pro are using, give thefilterguys.biz a call, as Jim it starting to sell them due to all the requests about them. They are nice units.
If you are interested in a Kati-Ani, which Anthony Calfo and Steve Pro are using, give thefilterguys.biz a call, as Jim it starting to sell them due to all the requests about them. They are nice units.
Hey Boomer, off the top of your head do you remember the things you want to watch out for when you are only doing Kati-Ani and not RO? I'm referring to things like phosphates, silica, etc. I know there can be issues with different forms of chlorine too which you have to be aware of also if not running a carbon block before the Kati-Ani.
Carlo
Carlo
Carlo
Kati-Ani use special resins different from most DI's. They remove PO4 and silica well, as low as zero by test kit stds. Most of the info can be found on German or Danish websites. The biggest draw back maybe the product water may have high pH due to the exchange of say PO4 for OH-. As far as chlorine or chloramines most RO/DI don't do a good job either.
As far as chlorine/chloramine, it is the carbon block that removes these, where by the chlorine/chloramine react with the carbon surface and reduces/converts them into Chloride ions. In the case of chloramine, chloride and ammonia are produced, which are taken out like any other DI. So, yes one needs a carbon block and in the presence of chlorine and maybe a post-carbon block C-GAC unit if there are chloramines, as carbon blocks are not all that great with chloramines. C-GAC was innovated for chloramine removal. I would not use one of these without at least a carbon block. In theory Carlo they are "suppose" to remove theses but I just don't by it. Jim is planning on running some tests. Currently he is selling them with carbon-blocks. Also, you should not go beyond 15 gals / hr and it may be a good idea to go even less, like 10 gal / hr. Going higher may cause "breakthrough". They are cartridges and cartridges don't have the best BTFP.
My big issue with these units is they make me nervous for some using them, as you need to use dangerous chemicals to recharge them.
On another note, I don't know if you have heard of this but you can charge these units in a way and use them to sup the water's Alk Now I would like to see someone play with that
Kati-Ani use special resins different from most DI's. They remove PO4 and silica well, as low as zero by test kit stds. Most of the info can be found on German or Danish websites. The biggest draw back maybe the product water may have high pH due to the exchange of say PO4 for OH-. As far as chlorine or chloramines most RO/DI don't do a good job either.
As far as chlorine/chloramine, it is the carbon block that removes these, where by the chlorine/chloramine react with the carbon surface and reduces/converts them into Chloride ions. In the case of chloramine, chloride and ammonia are produced, which are taken out like any other DI. So, yes one needs a carbon block and in the presence of chlorine and maybe a post-carbon block C-GAC unit if there are chloramines, as carbon blocks are not all that great with chloramines. C-GAC was innovated for chloramine removal. I would not use one of these without at least a carbon block. In theory Carlo they are "suppose" to remove theses but I just don't by it. Jim is planning on running some tests. Currently he is selling them with carbon-blocks. Also, you should not go beyond 15 gals / hr and it may be a good idea to go even less, like 10 gal / hr. Going higher may cause "breakthrough". They are cartridges and cartridges don't have the best BTFP.
My big issue with these units is they make me nervous for some using them, as you need to use dangerous chemicals to recharge them.
On another note, I don't know if you have heard of this but you can charge these units in a way and use them to sup the water's Alk
Now I would like to see someone play with that What was really bad Phyl was we had to get the intructions, which where in English, re-translated as they had you doing some crazy things, like mixing Lye ( Sodium Hydroxide, aka Caustic Soda) with Muriatic acid ( Hydrochloric Acid). Rule in chem, you do not mix strong acids with strong bases.
What's different about it Boomer besides the fact that they aren't mixed to a certain percentage of each? Kind of funny I've been using them for a while and never even gave a thought that they may be different.Boomer said:
You got me curious now however.It's funny, I have chloramines and high pH in my tap water and was prepared to do an acid drip to help with this but at the urging of Spectrapure tried the better carbon blocks and haven't had a problem since. I run a two-stage carbon 1 & .5 micron (I think or even smaller) and also have another set of carbon after the 3 stages of DI just for good measure.
I haven't had any problems running a lot faster then those gph. Heck my RO/DI without bypassing the membranes is faster then that.
What are you referring to here the amount of each resin you use to offset the pH of the water? If so I'm doing this to lower my pH already.My big issue with these units is they make me nervous for some using them, as you need to use dangerous chemicals to recharge them.
On another note, I don't know if you have heard of this but you can charge these units in a way and use them to sup the water's Alk
Carlo