The best Japanese ionizers like the Hydroanalytics IE-900 and the Enagic units use precisely calibrated flat electrodes. Water must likewise move evenly across a flat electrode in a perfectly even laminar flow. As soon as water flows unevenly, there is automatically uneven heat distribution across the electrode surface. The always uneven surface of mesh electrodes automatically creates an uneven water flow. This creates uneven heat distribution. This means that one part of the electrode must wear our faster than another part. This always reduces the useful life of the electrode. It signifies inferior manufacturing processes compared with the best Japanese technology. This is a basic and indisputable engineering principle: slotted or mesh electrodes always wear out faster. If you want to address this at an engineering level, you can objectively address how uneven heat distribution will not effect electrode wear since slotted or waffle electrodes all have uneven heat distribution. In terms of engineering, uneven heat distribution has to wear out one part of the electrode faster than other parts. This factually applies to Chanson, Jupiter, Life, Tyent and KYK ionizers,

In Japan, ionized alkaline water of itself is not considered a cancer cure or remission therapy. Please be very careful about these statement because people with cancer are obviously in a vulnerable position. On a lesser but related note, the notion of drinking >10.0 pH water is opposed by researchers in Japan.

Both price and quality are doubtless to be considered. Our Japanese units cost 1/3 the price of the Enagic units and are made by the same brain trust that made the Enagic ionizers.

If using a water conditioner, we recommend switching from salt or sodium chloride over to potassium chlorides. Sodium and potassium migrate to he alkaline water whereas chloride goes to the acid side. I9onized potassium is healthier for you than sodium which is related to blood pressure problems

I stay away from recommending specific brands on my blog as I want to be fair to everyone in the industry.

Portable water ionizers come in different forms. They currentyly vary from the “magic” sticks or wands that add minerals to the water, to filter like systems that also add minerals. Neither of these systems is a real water ionizer in the sense that they remove the minerals associated with acid water and they don’t produce micro clusters of water. They are based upon adding minerals instead of using electrolysis.

Despite not being real water ioniizers, they are interesting. They add minerals to the water such as tourmaline, magnesium, and calcium. They temporarily raise the pH to about 8.0 and lower the ORP to neutral or mildly negative numbers. While I would never recommend one of these portable units for full time use, as there is very little information available about how they work, and they provide instructions to throw away the water if the wand is used for more than half an hour in the water. However, the sticks seem to provide a temporary source of alkaline water that can be used on vacation or at work.

What would be perfect for many applications would be an effective real portable water ionizer that could be carried around. During my recent visit to various factories in Korea, I spoke to a company that is working on a low cost real portable concept, but it looked to be a long way off. However, I would never underestimate the ability of these industrious and extremely polite people.

Thank you.

Sorry for getting back to you so late on this blog. We did communicate email a couple of times.

To tide you over, I recommended an inexpensive portable water filter. If I remember correctly, you purchase a small unit and had very good early results. I would be interested in hearing if and how the results changed over time. While I think the portable filters are useful for trips etc, they are not real water ionizers and I would recommend finding a real water ionizer if you can afford it.

Thanks for the response.

I’m not exactly clear about your water setup, but it sounds like you have a water softener and a reverse osmosis system in place.

Water is very simple, but it can also be very complex. I apologize for making this response fairly long, but there are a large number of people in your exact same position. Hopefully, this explanation will everyone understand the implications of using a salt based water softener and then removing the salt with a reverse osmosis machine.

Your water softener replaces the calcium carbonate (hardness) with sodium chloride (salt) to prevent scaling in your pipes. Preventing scaling is a good thing, but the amount of salt added to your water typically makes your drinking water unpottable (unsafe) as the concentration of sodium will likely exceed the allowable 200 parts per million. The state of California has now made the sale of salt based water softeners illegal, and I suspect the EPA will follow suit and make all sales of salt based water softeners in the States illegal. Canadian authorities will inevitably follow suit. Most people understand that you should never drink water that has been processed with a water softener. However most people don’t understand that when you take a bath or shower, you skin absorbs approximately the same amount of sodium as you would absorb if you drank six 8 oz glassse of water. The bottom line is that nobody should be installing a salt based water softener in their home. We used one for years in our house and recently had it replaced with a salt-free water softener system.

When water softeners are used, many homeowners that care about what they are drinking install a reverse osmosis system under their kitchen sink to remove the salt from the water. The reverse osmosis system removes alot more than just the salt and basically turns the water into “dead” water which is virtually devoid of the minerals. Our bodies need minerals, so I’m not a big fan of reverse osmosis systems.

I personally don’t think anyone should ever use a reverse osmosis “RO” system. Virtually all toxins can be removed with specifically designed filters now days. The filters will target specific toxins or problems while still allowing the healthy minerals to remain in the water. If you find it is absolutely essential to have an RO type system, I would always prefer a distiller over an RO system. As associate of mine offers anyone with an RO system a free RO tank if they cut open their existing tank and then choose to remain using their RO system. The RO holding tanks are virtual cess pools and it doesn’t make any sense to me for anyone to ever use an RO system.

Lyn, you have followed exactly the industry “line” for what to do when someone has hard water. You have put in a water softener to remove the hardness. then you put in an RO system to remove the salt. When you added a water ionizer (congratulations by the way), you are adding a remineralization filter in order to provide minerals back into the water supply. Water ionizers need minerals in the water supply in order for the ionization process to be effective. I assume the remineralization filter will add calcium and/or magnesium back into the water. More expensive remin filters are avilable that add other minerals as well. Both calcium and magnesium filters will be effective in adding minerals as long as the pH of the water is less than 7.0, which should be the case as RO systems typically make the source water very acidic. The problem with only adding calcite (calcium carbonate) or magnesium to the water is that the body will be receiving too much calcium and zero other minerals from the water.

I know this advice will flyu in the face of every company out there trying to sell salt based water softeners, but heh, that is what I’m doing with this blog. I would replace the salt based water softener with a salt free water softener. That way, you and your family won’t be absorbing salt into your skin when bathing. The salt-free water softener will allow you to remove your RO system under your sink because no salt will be present. That means that your water supply for your drinking water will still have minerals present, so you don’t need a remineralization filter.

Now the water softener and reverse osmosis salemen can join the growing list of people that don’t like me. Fortunately, I don’t care about people trying to sell products that are bad for you.

Best regards

Rob

Mesh technology, as you call it, is great as it effectively adds about 25% to the surface area of the plates. However, what you call mesh is not mesh at all in quality units.

The so called “mesh” plates are in fact solid plates with slots in them. As the plates are installed next to each other, the slots in one plate chriss cross with the slots in the next plate forming a “lattice” like configuration. Therefore, there is no additional buildup of scale, as there is not actually any mesh involved at all.

The performance of any machine is determined by three primary factors:

1) the condition of the source water
2) the amount of time the water is in contact
with the ionizing plates
3) the amount of power running through the
plates as measured by amps

While more surface helps performance,it is my opinion that the feature is greatly overblown by manufacturers with large plates. For better results, slow down the flow of water over the plates.

A lower quality machine running at a slow rate of water flow will likely outperform a higher quality machine running at a fast water flow.