If you wanted to filter industrial amounts of vinyl chloride out of your source water, how would you do it?

[jabberwock]

No worries, I'm just hoping to get an answer before a certain group who defunded and deregulated railroad safety shows up and gets the thread locked.

The railroads dislike this as much as anyone. It is a fact that stuff happens. Double edged sword of providing goods, and risk of transport. The fact of the matter is that a definitive answer takes a long time to achieve. This type of situation is EVERYWHERE. Anytime you see a gas station, landfill or a dry cleaner, the groundwater is contaminated. Train derailments are "gumdrops" on the landscape. They are pretty rare. No-one can tell you what an effective decontamination system looks like before years of study.

 

[jabberwock]

I would like to add that any railroad company has some of the strictest safety requirements of any industry.

 

[ADAM]

Say you lived close to an area where 10 train car tanks of this stuff spilled, how would you remove this from your aquarium source water and home water?

May be better off asking one of the filtration companies directly for a faster response than waiting for someone in the know to see the thread. I’ve dealt with Spectrapure customer support on several occasions and they’ve always been great.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree that of all the filtration methods we use, GAC and RO membrane are the best ones to remove vinyl chloride.

The di won’t do anything for vinyl chloride since it is uncharged.

Phosgene, a breakdown product of burning vinyl chloride, will also be helped by these.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

May be better off asking one of the filtration companies directly for a faster response than waiting for someone in the know to see the thread. I’ve dealt with Spectrapure customer support on several occasions and they’ve always been great.

Faster? Better? ???

Maybe just a sales pitch for what they sell without real chemical understanding of a chemical they do not typically encounter.

 

[FishDaddy1992]

I would keep an eye out on the Camp Lejune water situation. Vinyl chloride was located in the water an was part of the law suit. I would say they have to be filtering it out now but I also know how the DOD is.

 

[timry2]

I live in central California where we have a lot of farming and fertilizer and pesticides and etc. try talking to an agricultural specialist, farmer or rancher. They know firsthand how to remove and add substances to the water table. I use a 5 stage ro/di with 2 carbon

 

[timry2]

The truth of the matter is his situation is the best case scenario. He at least knows what his water is contaminated with. We get semiannual and annual water reports that tell us when a well has be taken off line due to contamination or unsafe organic levels. Lets say the well is contaminated on February 1st, the scheduled testing cycle is on February 15 and on the 15th testing shows contamination. Thats 15 days of having bad water and I won’t find out until the semiannual or annual report cones out. There are a lot of communities across the US that are in the dark.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Folks, this is standard chemistry.

GAC and ro membrane will remove it.

 

[rennjidk]

The truth of the matter is his situation is the best case scenario. He at least knows what his water is contaminated with.

I wouldn't go that far, lol. My tap water comes out brown and the best we've gotten from the water department is a pinned statement on the website that says "Water's water. It's fine." Yay cracking, fracking, and crumbling infrastructure.

 

[rennjidk]

Faster? Better? ???

Maybe just a sales pitch for what they sell without real chemical understanding of a chemical they do not typically encounter.

What? You think that just because you've had a few decades of experience as a professional chemist and a forum named after yourself, that you suddenly know better than a random sales rep at a water filter company? The ego!

 

[ADAM]

Faster? Better? ???

Maybe just a sales pitch for what they sell without real chemical understanding of a chemical they do not typically encounter.

“May be better off getting a faster response”: Yes

If they would have emailed Spectrapure, or a filtration company with the same credentials, Monday night they would have likely had the answer Tuesday; so indeed faster.

With at the background of Spectrapure’s owner and president I think they’d be able to answer quickly and accurately. If carbon and an RO membrane is all that’s required I doubt they would have tried to sell them anything they didn’t need. I’m sure there’s a few “salesman” out there in the world that would have bent the truth a bit to try and make a sale but let’s not assume all of them are that way.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

“May be better off getting a faster response”: Yes

If they would have emailed Spectrapure, or a filtration company with the same credentials, Monday night they would have likely had the answer Tuesday; so indeed faster.

With at the background of Spectrapure’s owner and president I think they’d be able to answer quickly and accurately. If carbon and an RO membrane is all that’s required I doubt they would have tried to sell them anything they didn’t need. I’m sure there’s a few “salesman” out there in the world that would have bent the truth a bit to try and make a sale but let’s not assume all of them are that way.

You posted your suggestion just after midnight and I posted the answer before 8 AM the same day. So no, someone taking your advice is not going not going to get an answer faster from Charles or any other filtration company.

I do not doubt that, if, in fact, someone asked Charles and he responded, the answer would be appropriate. If someone else responded from some other company, I would have no such confidence.

More to the point, it’s a bit insulting to come into my chemistry forum and suggest folks go elsewhere for answers that I am fully qualified to answer. If you believed I gave a wrong answer or no answer after significant time had passed, then it’s more appropriate to suggest alternative methods of getting answers (IMO).

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

Carbon (packed tower aeration is what the EPA suggests),,, ro filter is good but make sure to have plenty of pre carbon filtration.

Randy you are right to be upset ....they had the right answer soon after posting.. (I'm a chemist and own a chemical transporting company) they just wanted an answer that makes Vinyl Chloride seem to be uranium or something.

 

[bratfink]

Say you lived close to an area where 10 train car tanks of this stuff spilled, how would you remove this from your aquarium source water and home water?

Really feel for you man.
I was driving to work the other morning listening to the news and thinking, “how would we ever deal with that with the railroad that runs right by our house”.
I get to work and get a message from my wife that a train came off the rails less than than a mile from our house (van Buren Twp, MI).
We got lucky it seems ( or they just aren’t telling us what came out). But in general the rail roads seem to be doing a poor job of keeping the rolly things on the shiny things.

No idea how to resolve your water, but I’d be buying as much filtration as I could reasonably afford.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

Really feel for you man.
I was driving to work the other morning listening to the news and thinking, “how would we ever deal with that with the railroad that runs right by our house”.
I get to work and get a message from my wife that a train came off the rails less than than a mile from our house (van Buren Twp, MI).
We got lucky it seems ( or they just aren’t telling us what came out). But in general the rail roads seem to be doing a poor job of keeping the rolly things on the shiny things.

No idea how to resolve your water, but I’d be buying as much filtration as I could reasonably afford.

my cousin was track manager of one of the big rail roads for years ,, he said rail cars come off the tracks every day, its a full time job , and those crews are always working somewhere... its not a recent phenomenon. they just generally happen in the middle of nowhere or dont involve spills of haz mat liquids.. most of the time the liquid rail container doesnt rupture.

look at any chemical or fuel tanker truck on the road, the top where the valves always has a strong welded "crash box" to keep the fitting from snapping off.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

....they had the right answer soon after posting.. (I'm a chemist and own a chemical transporting company) they just wanted an answer that makes Vinyl Chloride seem to be uranium or something.

True, 30 min from question to correct answer.

 

[ryanjohn1]

Not for nothing. Basically everyone in America lives near a place where chemicals have been dumped. Wether by accident or on purpose. In the past 100 years.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

Not for nothing. Basically everyone in America lives near a place where chemicals have been dumped. Wether by accident or on purpose. In the past 100 years.

yep,, from houston to new orleans is the "chemical belt" chemical plants everwhere .... yet many people live there daily....

 

[Batt]

I'm sorry but the water in ohio has been contained since the 1950. It's was so bad you couldn't swim in the lake. It's still contained but they say it ok know. I don't drink the tap water I have a RO connected to my sink and a 8 stage RODI to make water for my tank. Never trusted the water here period.