Water Softener Plant

A water softener reduces the dissolved calcium, magnesium, and to some degree manganese and ferrous iron ion concentration in hard water. These “hardness ions” cause three major kinds of undesired effects.Water softening is achieved either by adding chemicals that form insoluble precipitates or by ion exchange. On a small scale, chemicals used for softening include ammonia, borax, calcium hydroxide (slaked lime), or trisodium phosphate, usually in conjunction with sodium carbonate (soda ash).All water softeners use the same operating principle: They trade the minerals for something else, in most cases sodium. The process is called ion exchange. The heart of a water softener is a mineral tank. It's filled with small polystyrene beads, also known as resin or zeolite.Ion exchange is the oldest and most common method of water softening. Generally, it entails exchanging the magnesium and calcium ion contained in hard water for sodium ions. Since each calcium and magnesium ion has a positive charge of 2, each ion is exchanged for two sodium ions.