That’s what I thought!

Occam. - 20 January 2011 05:10 PM

If one wanted alkalinity, a pinch of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) would do the trick.  Yes, water does dissociate into H+ and OH- ions, but at the ten to the minus seventh level, that’s what the pH level means, and why pure water is pH 7.  If you add an acid there are more H+ ions (say from HCl <=> H+ and Cl-) and the value of the pH drops because instead of there being 10 to the minus seventh, it may go to ten to te minus 3 Hydrogen+ ions.  Similarly, if one adds a base, one releases more OH- or ties up more H+ ions so the number of them decreases and the pH goes up. 

If you expose pure water (which is almost a complete nonconductor) to positifve and negatively charged electrodes you will temporarily cause a very, very, very slight increase in H+ ions at the positive electrode and of OH- at the negative one.  But, as soon as you stop they’ll go back to neutral.  So, unless this company wanted to furnish double bottles of their water with a small connecting tube at the bottom, and a battery that one can turn on and hook to the positive and negative electrodes respectively in the bottles, AND instructed the person to use a straw and drink out of the bottle with the positive electrode while it’s running, one would get nothing unusual.  And even that would furnish such a submicroscopic amount of extra OH- that it would be meaningless.

Occam

Hm. Okay, thanks for the information. I suspected based on what I’d been reading that there wasn’t anything to this.

If it is pure H2O, it is neutral, not alkaline, nor acidic.  Why would anyone thing alkalinity would impart anything magical to the water? As a ‘regulator’ for a city water supply, I would think you would have a chemistry background.

Asanta, I’m not sure where your hostility originates, but if you really want to know, I have a master’s degree in biology and my undergraduate days are long (16 years) behind me. I’m sorry if you feel that I’m unqualified for my position, but my supervisors haven’t had many complaints. I was posting to get some additional resources of the kind that Occam was kind enough to provide precisely because I wish to do a good job. To clarify, I am a state regulator who happens to oversee bottled water not a certified operator at a public water system.

You have to understand, Warreni, that many here, such as Asanta have been so inundated wth spam and trolls who try to stir up things, that they get suspicious.

I think we expect more overlap between scientific fields than actually occurs.  When I was an undergraduate chem major I wasn’t required to take any biology courses but took two zoology ones for the fun of it.  They’ve stood me in good stead, however I often feel the real lack of any knowledge of bacteriology because I didn’t take any course in that field.  I can understand how, as a biology major you were probably only required to take one or two freshman chemistry courses and as such wouldn’t have the specialized knowledge to deal with people who talk a good very technical game of arcane pseudochemistry but are not being honest.

Occam

That’s the problem with the internet, as they say:

warreni - 24 January 2011 02:53 PM

Asanta, I’m not sure where your hostility originates, but if you really want to know, I have a master’s degree in biology and my undergraduate days are long (16 years) behind me. I’m sorry if you feel that I’m unqualified for my position, but my supervisors haven’t had many complaints. I was posting to get some additional resources of the kind that Occam was kind enough to provide precisely because I wish to do a good job. To clarify, I am a state regulator who happens to oversee bottled water not a certified operator at a public water system.

Not hostility, suspicion. We get a LOT of spammers here trying to sell all sorts of garbage, and they almost always have embedded links, which is why I was suspicious of your post. Welcome to the forum, and I am glad our resident chemist was able to help you!