Does Ozone Remove Fluoride from Water? Find Out Here!
Written by: Alexandra Uta // Last Updated: Oct 20, 2022
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Ozone is commonly used for treating water. It’s excellent at general disinfection and is a strong oxidizing agent, which further adds to its capabilities when used for water purification.
Ozone water purifiers are available on the market in various forms, and many people use them for purifying their own household water supplies.
But does ozone also remove fluoride from water?
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Key Takeaways
- While ozonation is a great water purification method, it’s completely ineffective at dealing with fluoride.
- Reverse osmosis, distillation, bone char, and activated alumina can be used to reduce fluoride content in water.
Does Ozone Remove Fluoride from Water?
As great as ozone is at general purification of water, it’s completely ineffective on fluoride in particular. Ozone does not react with fluoride in water and doesn’t alter the water’s properties in any way that makes fluoride easier to filter out.
Nevertheless, using ozone for water filtration has multiple proven benefits. These include:
- Destroys microorganisms
- Oxidizes various metals, making them easier to filter out through other means
- Helps with turbidity
- Reduces the smell and taste of chlorine in the water
Therefore, using an ozone water purifier is generally recommended alongside a filter that specifically targets fluoride. This can provide you with a strong filtration setup that can effectively deal with a number of different contaminants.
How Does an Ozone Water Purifier Work?
Ozone is created by running electricity or ultraviolet light through ordinary air or a stream of oxygen. This causes loose oxygen atoms (O) to bind with oxygen molecules (O2), creating ozone (O3) molecules. The resulting molecules work as a strong oxidizer, destroying most bacteria and other microorganisms instantly. Ozone works even better than chlorine in this regard.
Another benefit to ozone in the context of water filtration is that it oxidizes metals such as iron and manganese, which can make them easier to filter out through other means. That’s why using an ozone purifier can be recommended as an additional purification step, even if you are already using other types of purifiers in your home.
Electric and UV Ozone Generators
Ozone water purifiers generally work in one of two ways to generate ozone:
- Electrical ozone generators pass an electric charge at a high voltage through a container full of air/oxygen. The resulting ozone can be immediately dispersed into water to purify it.
- Ultraviolet ozone generators work in a similar way, but they use UV light instead of electricity to cause the formation of ozone molecules.
What Is Ozone?
Ozone is an oxygen molecule with three oxygen atoms (O3), as opposed to the regular O2 molecules in air. Ozone is naturally found in the atmosphere, and the processes leading to its creation are mimicked in commercial water purification units on a smaller scale.
Ozone has a very distinct odor and a pale blue color.
When Do You Need an Ozone Water Purifier?
Using an ozone water purifier is recommended when dealing with specific types of contaminants. As we mentioned above, ozone is great at destroying microorganisms. If your water is heavily contaminated with biological pollutants, an ozone purifier can make a lot of sense.
Another situation in which an ozone water purifier is recommended is when dealing with high levels of iron and other metals in your water supply. Ozone can oxidize many metals with ease, which makes them easier for your regular water filters to deal with.
Further Reading:
So, How Do You Get Rid of Fluoride in Water?
If you want to specifically deal with fluoride in your water, there are several filtration methods available on the market right now.
Activated alumina and bone char filtration are the most common approaches. Reverse osmosis is often used too. Distillation can also be an effective method for dealing with fluoride, but it’s limited in capacity.
Activated Alumina
Activated alumina filtration is very effective at reducing the level of fluoride in your water. It relies on dehydroxylated aluminum hydroxide, which works great at targeting fluoride.
However, this filtration method has one major limitation: It only works at peak performance at pH levels in the 5.0-6.0 range. Anything above and below that may severely reduce the effectiveness of activated alumina.
Bone Char
Bone char filters are also highly effective against fluoride. They are typically made of animal bones. Note that these filters should not be confused with activated carbon filtration, which is a completely different approach and is ineffective at dealing with fluoride.
Distillation
Distillation is a process in which water is evaporated and condensed back to liquid form in a separate container. This leaves most impurities behind, producing water that’s almost completely clean.
Fluoride is removed through water distillation completely. However, distillation requires constant work and is limited in capacity, making it unsuitable for ongoing water filtration.
Reverse Osmosis
Reverse osmosis relies on forcefully pushing water through a semipermeable membrane. The membrane only allows water molecules to pass through, pushing everything else back toward the source.
It can remove more than 90% of the fluoride in your water, making it a great method for dealing with fluoride contamination.
Is Fluoride in Water Natural?
Fluoride occurs naturally in water as it gets deposited by rocks and soils. However, the amounts typically found in natural water supplies are not high enough to make any significant health difference.
That’s why fluoride is also added to public water systems in many parts of the world as a preventative measure against tooth decay. The effectiveness of this approach is still disputed, however. While fluoride is known to reduce the occurrence of tooth decay, today’s impact of mixing it into drinking water is still under question.
If you have any thoughts about the question, does ozone remove fluoride from water, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below!
About the Author Alexandra Uta
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