What is alkalinity and what does it do in water?
Answer:
Alkalinity refers to the acid buffering capacity of water. It is formed by the hardness forming ions dissolved in water, e.g. calcium ions. Alkalinity is measured in mg/l.
What does alkalinity do?
It buffers acid that enters the water and thus keeps the pH value of the water stable.
An example. If you have hard water, you have a water with many calcium ions and therefore also with a high alkalinity. If you now try to lower the pH value with pH-Minus (is always an acid), the high alkalinity buffers the acid. It is very difficult to lower the pH value.
If you have soft water, you have water with few calcium ions and therefore also with a low alkalinity. If you now try to lower the pH with pH-Minus, the low alkalinity will only buffer the acid a little. The pH value can be lowered very easily.
With a low alkalinity, the pH value is very susceptible to fluctuation. It reacts even with low acid input. Almost all disinfectants are not pH-neutral. They can be acidic or alkaline. As a result, the pH value of the water can change slightly with a low alkalinity due to the addition of disinfectants.
With a high alkalinity, the pH value would not change if disinfectants were added.
The alkalinity of the water is reduced by the addition of acidic agents. These can be pH-reducers or organic chlorine. Organic chlorine contains cyanuric acid.
For this reason the alkalinity of whirlpools that are operated with chlorine should be between 80-160 mg/l.
Since the alkalinity is permanently lowered by the addition of acid, it is recommended to lower the pH value only in small steps when using chlorine, because lowering the pH value also lowers the alkalinity. If there is an excess of acid, the calcium ions are destroyed and the alkalinity decreases and the pH value begins to fluctuate very slightly.
When using Lotus Clean water care, alkalinity does not play a major role. The Lotus Clean products do not bring acid into the water. Because they do not bring acid into the water, no acid has to be buffered. Therefore the pH-Wet remains stable even with low alkalinity (40 mg/l and less).