Drinking water – pollutants

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Updated - September 13, 2024

Pollutants in drinking water are increasingly a criterion for dealing with filter technologies in order to eliminate as broad a range of pollutants as possible from drinking water.

This is especially true given the list of pollutants from these areas that may be contained in drinking water

• Antibiotics (Tetracyclines / fluoroquinolones, macrolides, penicillins, others)
  • Chlortetracycline, Ciprofloxacin, Doxycycline, Enoxacin, Enrofloxacin, Meclocycline, Norfloxacin, Ofloxacin, Oxytetracycline, Tetracycline
  • Clarithromycin, Dehydrato-Erythromycin, Erythromycin, Roxithromycin, Tylosin
  • Amoxicillin, Cloxacillin, Nafcillin, Oxacillin, Penicillin G/V1
  • Dapsone, furazolidone, metronidazole, ronidazole, sulfadiazine, sulfamerazine, sulfamethazine, sulfamethoxazole, trimetoprim
• bacteria / Viruses
  • Coliforms, enterococci, Escherichia coli / …
• Insecticides/plant protection products
  • Atrazine-desethyl-desisopropyl, clodinafop, cyflufenamide, desmedipham, fluopyram, mandipropamid, myclobutanil, pinoxaden, pirimicarb, pyroxsulam, tetraconazole, triticonazole, tritosulfuron
• Active pharmaceutical ingredients
  • Atenolol, Betaxolol, Bisoprolol, Carbamazepine, Clenbuterol, Cyclophosphamide, Diazepam, Etofibrate, Fenofibrate, Fenofibric acid, Furazolidone, Ifosfamide, Indomethacin, Ketoprofen, Metoprolol, Metronidazole, Paracematmol, Pentoxifylline, Phenazone, Pindolol, Propanolol, Propyphenazone, Salbutamol, Sim vastadin, sotalol, Terbutaline
• Steroid hormones
  • Estrone, 17-alpha-ethinylestradiol, 17-beta-estradiol
• Anions/Cations
  • Ammonium, calcium, potassium, magnesium, sodium/chloride, nitrate, orthophosphate, sulfate
• Inorganic components
  • Aluminum, lead, iron, copper, manganese, nickel, microplastics

in total make up more than a hundred substances.

Water test

Suppliers of water tests examine for the following substances, among others:

Metals / heavy metals

• aluminum
• arsenic
• Barium
• Nismuth
• Lead
• Cadmium
• Chrome
• Cobalt
• Gadolinium
• Gallium
• copper
• nickel
• Palladium
• Mercury
• radon
• Scandium
• Selenium
• Silver
• Strontium
• Thallium
• uranium
• Yttrium
• Zinc

Minerals / hardeners

• Beryllium
• Boron
• Chloride
• iron
• lithium
• magnesium
• manganese
• Sodium
• potassium
• calcium
• Phosphorus
• sulfate
• Water hardness

Nitrogen-containing compounds

• ammonium
• Nitrite
• nitrate
• Total nitrite / nitrate

Microbiological tests

• Legionella
• E.coli
• Enterococci
• Coliform germs
• Bacterial count at 22 °C and 36 °C

Salts / Esters

• Bromide
• Fluorine
• Phosphate

Other

• Anion sum
• PH value
• conductivity

Drinking water filtering

Given these facts sprout Companies like mushrooms springing up, all of which hold out the prospect of the production of water qualities up to and including “natural spring water”. The various advertising strategists come up with well-sounding process names, each more full-bodied than the last.

But what is actually behind it?

If you want to invest your money wisely, but don't want to fill the pockets of those who are loudest in advertising, you should find out exactly which filters and technologies are used in the systems that produce “spring water”.

All in all, it all just boils down to filtering. The finer the filter, the cleaner the result.

For home use, i.e. not industrial production of drinking or even process water, the finest filter available is the so-called osmosis membrane (0.0001 μm). It already filters out all of the above-mentioned pollutants from the water. Bacteria and viruses are destroyed by downstream UV-C clarifiers.

Filter systems upstream of the osmosis membrane (7 stages down to 0.02 μm, including re-mineralization to increase the reduction in pH caused by reverse osmosis) protect the osmosis membrane from premature contamination. The worse the pre-filtering, the shorter the change intervals for the osmosis membrane.

More is not possible – in the domestic environment!

Detailed information

The individual subject areas are discussed in more detail in the following articles:

• Differences in water qualities
• Reverse osmosis
• UV-C sterilization
• Poisons, metabolic products of bacteria, viruses