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RO/DI questions (3 Viewers)

Well it's maybe over simplified, but let's just say the mixed bed cartridge is 50/50 anion/cation.
my experience has been that the mixed bed is heavily skewed to cation. If you swperate the resin to regenerate, you'll end up with alot more cation than anion. I did this a few times with mixed bed resin, and same result.
Nor saying its a scam for sure, but in years past, nobody needed to buy add on anion cartridges, and resin tech (the main manufacturer) advertises mixed bed as 50/50. I have not yet regenerated the mixed bed I buy in bulk from AirWaterIce, in original Resin tech bags, but I have a 5 gallon pail full. A large enough sample size, I'd say. Lol
I get about 3,000gallons out of 2 20" mixed bed, and a final 10" mixed bed. I'll be keeping resin seperate after regeneration, just to make regeneration simpler in the future.
But, as I said before, the only thing that gets depleted in my system (at any significant rate) is the anion.
Pretty common for most people.
 
@spsick I was re-reading your post. Pretty impressive. Btw what is your tds before entering the DI stage. I am assuming based on your tank your total water volume is at around 170 to 180 gallons
 
Another thing, water softener has SIGNIFICANTLY improved filter life for me. The water up hear around saint cloud is very hard. The calcium and magnesium tear up membranes. When the membrane degrades, resin burns faster. A water softener uses cation resin to exchange calcium and magnesium (mainly) ions for sodium ions, which membranes eaaily reject.
 
I wonder if that’s another reason I burn more anion, since the water going into my system is softened. Thoughts?
 
I wonder if that’s another reason I burn more anion, since the water going into my system is softened. Thoughts?
I had to set mine to regenerate alot more often than default. Silicate will also really cook anion resin. I also have to keep my salt barrel at least half full, or else the water ends up getring hard again.
 
Very interesting conversation, does it matter if the anion or cation goes first? If you burn through more anion would it make sense to put that first in series?
 
Very interesting conversation, does it matter if the anion or cation goes first? If you burn through more anion would it make sense to put that first in series?
I don't believe so. Each removes different ions.
And example: Sodium Chloride (table salt)
Sodium is the Cation, Chloride is the anion. Pretty much everything in water will be a cation|anion bond.
Another thing that burns up Anion resin is co2. This is a big problem for those on well water. The problem isnt that the product rodi will have co2, its that the co2 exhausted thw resin, and now the water will contain other Anion ions which are undesirable, like silicate, or worse.
 
I also have to keep my salt barrel at least half full, or else the water ends up getring hard again.

I’m confused by this. Can you enlighten me please? :)
 
I’m not sure if order matters or not, but in all my research everyone said to put the cation first. Not sure why, but that’s how I’ve ran mine.

And yes, I’ve also wondered whether the co2 issue is part of why I burn more anion. I’ve debated about setting up a tank for RO water to off gas co2 for a day, then pump it through the DI stages. I’m pretty sure it might save me anion resin. But the way it is I only burn maybe 1 refill a year (since I only have the 65 gallon display and 15 gallon QT tank). I can afford $15/year in resin to not have to jack around with the 3rd big container :)
 
Oh haha, since we’re talking above making rodi to make saltwater, I was trying to figure out how the water in you’re NSW barrel got hard if it was half full :)
 

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