My new Magnet Source Catalog offers WaterTreatment Magnets one attatches to
water pipes for such things as descaling and reducing hardness. There is a
polarity to the arrangement. The magnetised water is said to feel wetter,
cleaner, softer etc. I am skeptical but willing to listen (and learn?).
Jim McConville
Physics Department
The University of Chicago
5720 Ellis Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60637
773/702-7012 * fax773/702-2045
ojim@midway.uchicago.edu
I too am skeptical.
To deal with the problems caused by hard water, one usually tries to
remove hardness before using the water. Water softeners typically
replace calcium and magnesium ions with sodium ions, which form very
soluble salts in water.
Deposition and ion exchange are electrical phenomena. Calcium and
magnesium bond with certain anions to form inorganic salts (e.g., calcium
carbonate) that become less soluble in water as temperature increases.
Can magnetism be used to keep these anions and cations apart so that
insoluble salts can't form? The most abundant isotopes of calcium (40)
and magnesium (24) have zero net nuclear spin, so as magnetic dipoles,
these nuclei would interact only very weakly, if at all, with an external
magnetic field. Seems to me that the electrical interaction would be far
stronger than any magnetic interaction between these ions and the
magnetic field. Moreover, any residual organizing influences of
the magnetic field would be counteracted by turbulence and other
randomizing influences in a water system. So it is hard to see how
magnets could be used to sequester calcium and magnesium ions from
carbonate and other anions.
If magnetism can't be used to prevent precipitation, can it be used to
prevent deposition on the walls of the water system, and in particular,
on surfaces where heat is transferred to water? Again, I would argue in
the negative. The magnetic force, if it opposed the attractive
forces between surface metal and precipitates of calcium and magnesium
salts, would be too weak to compete with the electrical interactions that
favor deposit formation.