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Magnetic Water Conditioner

matt-r

Student
M
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Mar 15, 2006
Messages
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I posted something like this in the "General Skepticism" forum, as a reply to an old thread (see http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60143 ) but got no reply, so I'm trying here...

My mum has recently bought a magnetic water conditioner for £90 (which seems like a lot of money for a transformer and a wire). This is where she got her water conditioner:-

http://www.waterimp.co.uk

I am seriously sceptical about this and would really like someone with a bit of expert knowledge to give me some idea as to how this could work, or if it's downright nonsense. Of course, if it actually works then we don't necessarily need to know how it works in order to buy/use one, but dammit I find it hard to believe that our knowledge of magnetism and dissolved mineral salts is so crappy that (if indeed it does work) we can't figure it out. On the site itself I see references to studies but no detailed papers of any kind (quelle surprise). It stinks of woo, but then I am surprised by the relatively lukewarm reaction on the original thread I posted at, with Hans suggesting that magnetic fields have some effect on hard water. I normally expect a more vociferous and detailed deconstruction on this forum if something is 100% woo!

The place that my mum got her's from offer a 190 day money-back guarantee (I can already hear groans and mutters of "good luck with that" from the regulars!) and if it is complete rubbish then I want her to pack it up and send it back ASAP. If she can't get her money back, we'll chalk it up to experience I suppose.

Matt
 
It is a scam. Even if it did work, it would only work in the area of the magnetic field. So, just that 2-inch section of pipe would be clean. The rest of your house will still have deposits. Also, the device doesn't destroy or remove the minerals. It just claims to keep them in suspension. That does not condition the water in any way.

/water resources engineer
 
In an earlier thread Woo in my Loo I admitted that I had been persuaded to purchase and install one of these devices.

Given that I had to clean the limescale out of the shower head after less than 6 months of usage, I'd say it's utter b0ll0cks

Then again I think mine cost only £30
 
Let's assume for a moment that this thing does EXACTLY what it claims it's been proven to do: it prevents buildup of lime in the metal pipes it's attached to. What does that mean?

Well, obviously the lime can't have disappeared - if it's not depositing on the pipes directly connected to the water imp, then it's staying in the water. And if it's staying in the water, it could just get deposited out further downstream - for example, in your drains, or your dishwasher, or your washing machine. The test they say they did do not indicate or even suggest that it actually helps prevent lime deposits downstream (and could even make them worse).

It's quite possible it does work to prevent lime buildup on metal pipes it's directly connected to. It may be running an electric current into the pipes, which might act to inhibit deposition - but that would be an electrochemical process (like running a battery in reverse), not a magnetic one. And it's also one which could easily increase deposition rates somewhere further away from the device.

The final nail in the coffin, though, should be the self-contradictory claims it makes. On one page it presents the problems that this device is supposed to solve, and includes "Alleviating skin irritation caused by showers and baths in hard water areas". On another page, it says that "the Water Imps have the advantages of retaining healthy minerals in the water and eliminating the need for a separate drinking water tap." If these minerals (which are what make water "hard") are healthy, why are they causing skin irritation? If they're causing skin irritation, isn't keeping them in the water so that you ingest them rather a bad idea?
 
Ziggurat said:
...Well, obviously the lime can't have disappeared - if it's not depositing on the pipes directly connected to the water imp, then it's staying in the water. And if it's staying in the water, it could just get deposited out further downstream - for example, in your drains, or your dishwasher, or your washing machine.
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Not to mention your gizzard!!!

mean Gene
 
Believe it or not, it hasn't been that long ago (and maybe still today) that such devices were seriously, even successfully, peddled at such venues as Society of Petroleum Engineers conventions.

Oilfield fluids can make especially nasty deposits. Many mid-continent brines are only ~75% water, some of the scales they deposit are practically impossible to remove; paraffin and asphaltene deposits from the oil aren't much nicer. I've personally had to deal with flowlines 90% occluded by scale deposits and completely plugged by hydrocarbon gunk; it's a whole lot of non-free no-fun. One can't fault the engineers for wishing for easy solutions, but they should know the maxim about wishing in one hand... well, you know.

I was always amazed that these vendors didn't get laughed out of the hall. It's one thing -- and reprehensible -- to successfully scam Grandma out of a few dollars. Professional engineers ought to know better than to waste thousands of dollars on magic voodoo gadgetry.
 
Did they say anything about it being able to get iron out of the water?
 
Thanks for those who replied. To be fair to them Zigguarat I don't think it's claiming to remove hardness, or to just prevent limescale buildup on the pipes actually enclosed by the magnetic field. What it's claiming (and which seems more plausible to me, although not very) is that the magnetic field disturbs the process whereby the dissolved mineral salts precipitate out of solution. The idea (apparently) is that the magnetic field "has the effect of altering the formation of calcium carbonate crystals (limescale), so that they remain in suspension in small particles and do not form hard crystalline deposits inside pipes, boilers and domestic appliances."

Now if a magnetic field could cause dissolved mineral salts to precipitate as a fine suspension, before it has the chance to precipitate as a thick scale on the inside of a kettle (say) then that would be great. It sounds vaguely plausible to someone like me with a reasonable science education* (in that hard water contains charged ions, and it doesn't seem unreasonable for a magnetic field to have some kind of effect on them). However, the whole thing has all the hyperbolic claims that you associate with bulls**t (I agree that their claim re skin irritation just can't have any foundation, even if it works in the way they claim). If there really are significant benefits (or indeed any benefits) to it then why the hell aren't big, respectable manufacturers of domestic appliances producing them? So there are plenty of reasons for me to be sceptical.

That said, I'm just a bit concerned that the level of scientific knowledge in this area perhaps isn't comprehensive enough to rebut the claims completely. I certainly haven't seen anyone willing to put their neck on the line and say "magnetic fields don't affect crystallisation". And at least one forum regular suggests that it might. The picture seems to be a lot greyer than that. I am quite prepared to accept that magnetic fields do affect crystallisation, but that companies like these are making massive claims for a tiny effect - that's harder to sell to my mum as a reason to send it back, but I'd prefer to know the truth rather than oversimplify it and say "there is absolutely no effect - their science is completely and utterly misfounded".

Finally, I had a look at the Skeptical Inquirer article linked to in The Don's thread. That seems to confirm my suspiscions i.e. that there is some evidence for an effect, but that it is erratic and rarely (if ever) significant in a domestic setting. If the scientific picture is grey, we should acknowledge that.

Matt

*up to the age of 18 - A-levels, if you're in the UK
 
matt-r said:
Now if a magnetic field could cause dissolved mineral salts to precipitate as a fine suspension, before it has the chance to precipitate as a thick scale on the inside of a kettle (say) then that would be great. It sounds vaguely plausible to someone like me with a reasonable science education* (in that hard water contains charged ions, and it doesn't seem unreasonable for a magnetic field to have some kind of effect on them).
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Sure it is. You contain ions and all those positive and negative charges in every atom of your body. You must be strongly effected my a magnetic field as well.

This is not at all true. What gets effected most easily by magnetic fields are free electrons in a metal, and that is only a changing field, a constant field effects thing depending on how strongly para/ferro/diamagnetic they are, hence the floating a frog in a magnetic field.

You might get some relative concentrating of ions as the water moves by the magnets, but very little as that would create electric charges and they would very quickly balance the effect. This would be similar to the hall effect. Of course if they are precipitating out they are a bound ionic crystal and should not be effected much by magnetic fields then.

However, the whole thing has all the hyperbolic claims that you associate with bulls**t (I agree that their claim re skin irritation just can't have any foundation, even if it works in the way they claim). If there really are significant benefits (or indeed any benefits) to it then why the hell aren't big, respectable manufacturers of domestic appliances producing them? So there are plenty of reasons for me to be sceptical.

That said, I'm just a bit concerned that the level of scientific knowledge in this area perhaps isn't comprehensive enough to rebut the claims completely. I certainly haven't seen anyone willing to put their neck on the line and say "magnetic fields don't affect crystallisation". And at least one forum regular suggests that it might. The picture seems to be a lot greyer than that. I am quite prepared to accept that magnetic fields do affect crystallisation, but that companies like these are making massive claims for a tiny effect - that's harder to sell to my mum as a reason to send it back, but I'd prefer to know the truth rather than oversimplify it and say "there is absolutely no effect - their science is completely and utterly misfounded".
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What strength field? This is not that strong a magnet. I would be very surprised if it had any macroscopic effect on crystallization, favoring certain orientations of the lattice structure is what I might expect. After all this is not an NMR we are talking about.

Also keep in mind, if they have good evidence that it works why are they not distributing it? If they where honest they would admit the burden of proof is on them to prove it is effective not on us to show it is BS.
 
matt-r said:
Thanks for those who replied. To be fair to them Zigguarat I don't think it's claiming to remove hardness, or to just prevent limescale buildup on the pipes actually enclosed by the magnetic field. What it's claiming (and which seems more plausible to me, although not very) is that the magnetic field disturbs the process whereby the dissolved mineral salts precipitate out of solution.
Click to expand...

That's what they're suggesting, but it is NOT what they're claiming. What they're claiming is actually quite restricted, and it ONLY amounts to what they say their demonstrations prove: namely that you won't get deposits on the pipes the device is connected to. How exactly that happens, or what happens elsewhere, is never definitively stated, and you should take them on their word in that regard: they either don't know, don't care, or are deliberately avoiding saying. Which means you cannot take what they only suggest as being true. As a skeptical consumer, you must assume that the stuff will likely just precipitate out downstream, possibly in greater quantity because it isn't depositing on the pipe in question. They have provided no information to indicate that this will not happen.
 
In case anyone's interested, the verdict's in. My mum has admitted that the thing doesn't work and will be sending it back. Her kettle is furring up just like it always has. I'll be interested to see if she can get a refund...
 
I hope she gets it as well- if they quibble you can refer them to trading standards. A 190 day guarantee should hold whatever they say. To be honest just the mention of trading standards should be enough to get your money back. They won't want to try and justify their claims in court!
 
Lime -- that is, Calcium Oxide (CaO)-- is not ferromagnetic. Therefore, it is not directly affected by magnetic fields.

Hematite (Fe2O3) is antiferromagnetic, meaning that it has no net magnetic field of its own, and may or may not be attracted to a magnet, depending on temperature and other physical factors.

Magnetite (Fe3O4) is ferrimagnetic, a special type of antiferromagnetism, in which the mineral possesses its own weak magnetic field, and is usually attracted to a magnet.

Most other non-ferric minerals have absolutely no magnetic properties at all.

However, the free iron in hard water may be trapped by a magnet.

The device is as bogus as those "Magnetic Mileage Enhancers" people were buying and strapping to their carburators a few decades ago.
 
Fnord said:
Lime -- that is, Calcium Oxide (CaO)-- is not ferromagnetic. Therefore, it is not directly affected by magnetic fields.

Hematite (Fe2O3) is antiferromagnetic, meaning that it has no net magnetic field of its own, and may or may not be attracted to a magnet, depending on temperature and other physical factors.

Magnetite (Fe3O4) is ferrimagnetic, a special type of antiferromagnetism, in which the mineral possesses its own weak magnetic field, and is usually attracted to a magnet.

Most other non-ferric minerals have absolutely no magnetic properties at all.

However, the free iron in hard water may be trapped by a magnet.

The device is as bogus as those "Magnetic Mileage Enhancers" people were buying and strapping to their carburators a few decades ago.
Click to expand...

Ah, but none of those things are actually present in water. The ions are present, and since these are electrically charged they will be deflected by a magnetic field. It is entirely possible that the ions in the water will move slightly sideways when passing through this device. How useful.
 
Since the minerals are present as ions in the water, it should be possible to direct them with strong magnetic or electric field into a trap and remove them.

I seem to recall that there once were devices like that which did work; they were quite expensive (think multiples of $1,000), had a trap that had to be cleaned out regularly, and were using electromagnets (coils, large ones). I can't find any reference to those devices anymore, so I guess they were not too efficient compared to other techniques (reverse osmosis and ion exchangers, mostly).

Anything that uses permament magnets and does not has traps is simply bull.
 
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