]Magnetic Water and Fuel Treatment: Myth, Magic, or Mainstream Science?
by Mike R. Powell.
Claimed Benefits and Effects
Magnetic water treatment devices consist of one or more magnets, which are clamped onto or installed inside the incoming residential water supply line.
Water Hardness
Water "hardness" is a measure of dissolved mineral content. The most common hardness minerals are carbonates and sulfates of magnesium and calcium. Hard water is often undesirable because the dissolved minerals can form scale. Scale is simply the solid phase of the dissolved minerals.
Magnetic Water Treatment
Note that only the "effective" or "subjective" hardness is claimed to be reduced through magnetic treatment. No magnesium or calcium is removed from the water by magnetic treatment. Instead, the claim is that the magnetic field decreases the tendency of the dissolved minerals to form scale.
The important question here, though, is whether magnetic water treatment works. .
More than one hundred relevant articles and reports are available in the open literature, so clearly magnetic water treatment has received some attention from the scientific community (e.g., see reference list in Duffy 1977). . In many cases, researchers report finding no significant magnetic treatment effect. In other cases, however, reasonable evidence for an effect is provided.
Liburkin et al. (1986) found that magnetic treatment affected the structure of gypsum (calcium sulfate). Gypsum particles formed in magnetically treated water were found to be larger and "more regularly oriented" than those formed in ordinary water. Similarly, Kronenberg (1985) reported that magnetic treatment changed the mode of calcium carbonate precipitation such that circular disc-shaped particles are formed rather than the dendritic (branching or tree-like) particles observed in nontreated water. Others (e.g., Chechel and Annenkova 1972; Martynova et al. 1967) also have found that magnetic treatment affects the structure of subsequently precipitated solids. Because scale formation involves precipitation and crystallization, these studies imply that magnetic water treatment is likely to have an effect on the formation of scale. .
Among those who report some type of direct magnetic-water-treatment effect, a consensus seems to be emerging that the effect results from the interaction of the applied magnetic field with surface charges of suspended particles (Donaldson 1988; Lipus et al. 1994). Krylov et al. (1985) found that the electrical charges on calcium carbonate particles are significantly affected by the application of a magnetic field. Further, the magnitude of the change in particle charge increased as the strength of the applied magnetic field increased.
Gehr et al. (1995) found that magnetic treatment affects the quantity of suspended and dissolved calcium sulfate. A very strong magnetic field (47,500 gauss) generated by a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer was used to test identical calcium sulfate suspensions with very high hardness (1,700 ppm on a CaCO3 basis). Two minutes of magnetic treatment decreased the dissolved calcium concentration by about 10 percent. The magnetic field also decreased the average particle charge by about 23 percent. These results, along with those of many others (e.g., Parsons et al. 1997; crap and crap 1997), imply that application of a magnetic field can affect the dissolution and crystallization of at least some compounds.
Much of the available laboratory test data imply that magnetic water treatment devices are largely ineffective, yet reports of positive results in industrial settings persist (e.g., Spear 1992; Donaldson 1988). The contradictory reports imply that if a magnetic water treatment effect for scale prevention exists, then it only is effective under some of the conditions encountered in industry. At present, there does not seem to be a defensible guideline for determining when the desired effect can be expected and when it cannot.
Is there a beneficial effect of magnetic water treatment? Perhaps.
Bone I greatly edited the Mike Powell article that was posted by John Brandt on page 10. While the entire article raised some serious questions about the effectiveness of some magnet products, the above quotes are what got my attention. I believe it is possible that the magnets that I am using to clean the acrylic cylinder may be helping to prevent the formation of scale and thus allowing the inner pad to become much more efficient. All I know is the automatic cleaning system I have on the 300 tank works much better than I ever dreamed it would. I will edit this post when I get to the store and attach a picture. My purpose in posting was to neither support or attack Ecoaqualizer's claims. (Although I am testing their product. Thanks Carl) Skepticism comes easy for me, but I still think you should test something before you pass final judgement.
Marc Weiss once posted on the AMDA forum an interesting statement. He said they hired a researcher to see why people were knocking their products. What they learned was that most of the people who were running them down had never actually even tried the products themselves. I believe it.
