OK, so I know that this is about woo (the currently fashionable term for stuff that is pseudoscientific, nonsensical, illogical, etc), but I wonder if anybody else here has heard this term or seen advertisements for anything like this.

The idea is that water is electrolyzed, and metallic ions (they don't explain, but we'll leave it be) allow lots of electrons to be present in the water. Then this anionized water (an anion is something that would go to the positive electrode, aka the anode) can be used to wash stuff like fruit.

The idea of free electrons floating around in a bottle of salty water strikes me as about as nonsensical as anything I can imagine, but I wonder if anybody has seen this kind of thing for sale, or heard of it on the Saturday morning AM radio shows, or anyplace else?

Thanks.

News to me!
But sounds like an SNL commercial to me.

It is complete horseshit.

---

I'll see you again... when we are both like golden clouds on the wind.

Quote
rob banzai
It is complete horseshit.

anionized water can be used to wash vegetables
anionized water is horseshit
therefore, horseshit can be used to wash vegetables

also, horseshit is apparently ok with the forum filters

What about "Alkaline Water"???

Quote
fauch
What about "Alkaline Water"???

A friend of mine swears it relieves his indigestion. I'm skeptical.

Alkaline water is even more woo-ful, but I don't think it is the same woo. I believe the alkaline water thing originates in a totally quackish belief that all human ailments stem from pH imbalance, or at least that cancer is the response to a pH imbalance. This is just a little less crazy than the guy who claims that cancer is actually a fungus. I guess he is unaware of this new invention called a microscope.

Thanks, particularly to rob banzai, who made me laugh. I'm glad to see that this nonsense is not yet a major part of the economy.

It is possible to put ozone (O₃+) into water. It makes H₂O₂ and tends to kill off anaerobic bacteria in fish tanks. It is very difficult to control without a consistent pH and set of dissolved minerals in the water supply.

Some water districts use/used it to kill bacteria in water but it dissipates rapidly and can end up causing odor problems when all the dead bacteria all collected in slow moving low points and start decaying. I believe any that currently use it add a secondary purification chemical to help keep things "pure." A quick way to make it is pour 1/4 teaspoon of Hydrogen Peroxide into a quart of water. Manufacturers can add preservatives/stabilizers of some sort to the topical solutions, so I would not recommend drinking much of it.

Negative ions are little harder to manage. A high pH water without some sort of positive ion to moderate it usually just ends up ripping positive ions off whatever is around, which can do nasty things to metal or the wrong plastics.

---

In tha 360. MRF User Map



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2014 01:34AM by Filliam H. Muffman.

I lurk a lot here but seldom find anything I really want to reply to; this thread, however, needs some clarification.

Yes, the claims are bull.

The amount of chemical misinformation can be surprising here. For those that already know this stuff, I will apologize in advance, but this is something that I find I have to comment on.

Ozone is trimolecular oxygen, O3. It has no charge associated with it: it is therefore neither a cation (having a positive charge) nor an anion (having a negative charge). It is thermodynamically unstable, meaning that it will break down into a more stable form, namely dimolecular oxygen (O2). It can be formed using several different methods, from electrical discharge in air to ultraviolet radiation of diatomic oxygen. The electrical discharge method is what you experience during a thunderstorm when you can smell the ozone, and ultraviolet radiation on oxygen in the stratosphere will produce ozone. It is commercially produced using these methods, as well as others.

Ozone is indeed soluble in water, with the amount dependent on pressure and inversely dependent upon temperature. It is more soluble than oxygen in water. It decomposes in water in a complex mechanism that is not fully understood, but it is thought to involve the formation of hydroxyl free radicals, which then react with the first thing they encounter. It is this intermediate that is useful as a disinfecting agent, as it is indiscriminate in its reactions, and is the culprit for the damage ozone is known to cause. The other product is, of course, oxygen. Other products can form depending on what the intermediate reacted with.

Excessive ozone produced in ozonizers can cause damage to other living organisms, including the gills of the fish in the tank as well as the skin of the bather in the hot tub. However, most products that ozonize water only form relatively small amounts so it is usually not something of a concern.

Hydrogen peroxide is not produced from ozone but rather reacts with it, especially if it is present in its anionic form (one hydrogen, two oxygens, with a single negative charge—HO2-). Hydrogen peroxide is formed in the reduction of diatomic oxygen (the stuff we breathe) with diatomic hydrogen. It breaks down in two one-electron steps, one that forms both the hydroxyl radical and the superoxide radical. Both radicals react at diffusional speeds (quite fast), and both are quite damaging to living tissues. Hence, living tissues have enzymes readily available to deal with both of these products (superoxide dismutase and catalase) and so the damage is very limited. The final (main) products of the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide is water and oxygen, with of course any other stuff the intermediates may have reacted with.

It is never a good idea to drink hydrogen peroxide, even in very small amounts. The amounts of superoxide dismutase and catalase present in the cells is very small. Drinking such a damaging oxidizer can easily overwhelm what the resources the cells have and can cause quite a lot of damage. If you find you need to sterilize your water with hydrogen peroxide, I would suggest waiting a while for the peroxide to decompose before you drink it.

As for the negative ions in solution: you cannot have negative ions without positive ions. You cannot have high pH water without a counter ion. The charges in the solution will balance. The "high pH in water" business means that, yes, indeed, you have a high concentration of hydroxide ions in the water. Since water _autoionizes_ (underlines to prevent the autocorrect from breaking up the term), it forms hydronium (H+) and hydroxide (OH-) ions at the equal concentrations of 10^-7 moles per liter. This is the basis for the "pure water has a pH of 7" adage. High numbers of OH- ions means that you need a correspondingly high number of positive charges to balance it; it becomes obvious that the amounts of H+ that water can provide as a balance is insufficient (and wouldn't change the pH either). Thus, the OH- ions cannot be coming from water, but must be coming from something else. The metal hydroxide added to the water to give the OH- will provide both the OH- and the corresponding cations to balance the charge present from the OH-.

Example: NaOH is a base. In an aqueous solution (dissolved in water) it produces Na+ and OH-. Ba(OH)2 is also a base, producing Ba2+ and 2 OH- ions. Note that the charges balance.

I'm not saying that a high pH solution won't react with what it encounters (such as metals, glass and some plastics), but it isn't looking for positive ions from the metals, glass and plastics. It reacts because it is thermodynamically favorable, giving products that are more stable than the reactants.

For those individual that require references, let me know. I will provide whatever I can. The years I spent in graduate school involved helping individuals studying the oxidative effects and products of various neurotransmitters, looking for a possible cause for the reduced dopamine production found in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients. Also, the chemistry professor in me screams when I see this kind of stuff.

Diana

Quote
Diana
I lurk a lot here but seldom find anything I really want to reply to;
Diana

---

Bill
Flagler Beach, FL 32136

Carpe Vino!

Fermentation may have been a greater discovery than fire.
— David Rains Wallace

Quote
Diana

For those individual that require references, let me know. I will provide whatever I can. The years I spent in graduate school involved helping individuals studying the oxidative effects and products of various neurotransmitters, looking for a possible cause for the reduced dopamine production found in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients. Also, the chemistry professor in me screams when I see this kind of stuff.

Diana

And THIS is why I love this place...
We have people that know stuff about lots of stuff. (I was going to make that a lot more wordy, but I think that covers it...).

---

Paul F.
-----
A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca c. 5 BC - 65 AD
----
Good is the enemy of Excellent. Talent is not necessary for Excellence.
Persistence is necessary for Excellence. And Persistence is a Decision.
--

--

--
Eureka, CA

It is better than Penta Water?

[www.pentawater.com]

Apparently is so filtered that the water molecules are separated. I do not know why the bottle is not filled with vapor.

More woo. No, I'm not clicking the link! And yes, I choose to see this as sarcasm. The scientific thinking skill of the American public is effectively zero.

The water molecules are separated. Not as much as in a gas, but more than they would be as a solid. The more you filter out the ions and stuff in water, the closer the water molecules can come to one another (think about it!). However, they do interact with one another--so they remain a liquid at temperatures that other compounds of similar size and shape would be a gas. This interaction (hydrogen bonding) allows water to have some unique properties and has been said that it allows life as we know it to exist on this planet.

BTW, there is a limit to how much you can filter out the "stuff" from water. Distillation of pure water will take approximately 20 or more separate distillations, each with progressively cleaner equipment, and even then the water will strip anything it can get to that can be attracted to it from the surface of the equipment used. And watch the gases it comes into contact with, as they are soluble in water to varying degrees. Anybody who says that they have pure water, free of chemicals, doesn't know what they are talking about. Isn't water a chemical? "Ultrapure" laboratory water is water that has a resistance of 18 megohms. It has ions in it, just not very many.

Diana

Lurk less, post more.

Those were extremely interesting posts.


And THIS is why I love this place...
We have people that know stuff about lots of stuff. (I was going to make that a lot more wordy, but I think that covers it...).

This!

And some know lots of stuff about stuff.

And though it sounds sexist (and probably is, apologies) the women here bring a lot to the table.

(Not that I view any of them as serving wenches. That would be way wrong.)

Seriously, fascinating posts.

---

I am that Masked Man.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

Quote
Diana
... this thread, however, needs some clarification.

Sincere apologies, did I get opposites mixed up as analogs? It has been 30 years since I took thermochem.

H₂O really is amazing stuff.

---

In tha 360. MRF User Map

"Those were extremely interesting posts."

Yes, very much so!

Hi Diana, I think I am confused. Are you saying I should be washing my vegetables with anionized water? I keep mixing the hydrogen peroxide with the water but I am not sure what to do next. Thanks.

Little Willy was,
But Little Willy is no more.
What Willy thought was H₂O,
Was H₂SO₄.


Eustace

RAMd®d, thanks. I'm not seeing your comments as sexist, so no problem.

Filliam, I may have taken your comments a little too seriously; it's just that a lot of stuff has been said and posted on the inter-webbs that people believe that just isn't so. The idea that we can "anion-ize" water without cations being present is just totally wrong. Free electrons cannot exist in any stable configuration in water. They will find a way to be neutralized by a positive charge. This is simple electrochemistry (not that electrochemistry is in itself simple); thermochemistry says what is possible, and kinetics says how fast it will happen.

Michaelb, wash your vegetables however you want. Anion-ized water (dash included because stupid autocorrect keeps changing stuff!) doesn't and cannot exist; the idea flies in the face of both physics and thermodynamics. Mix the hydrogen peroxide with the water to wash your vegetables if you wish. I would just let them dry before using them.

The hydrogen peroxide you get in the store is a 3% solution. It's pretty benign stuff when you compare it to the more concentrated stuff available (30% H2O2). There is a reason why your dentist may be telling you to use diluted (half water/half hydrogen peroxide) when you gargle or use the waterpik. It's just not something you want to drink.

Lew Zealand--that's funny! I hadn't seen that one before!
Eustace, same to you and your rhyme!

Thanks, all.

Diana