Deionized or distilled?

JW1993

JW1993

JW1993

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21 Dec 2009
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Gateshead
I've been all around the town today looking for some distilled water but couldn't find any anywhere. Most places had de ionsized but i'd read that I shouldnt be using that because of the ions corroding the water blocks etc. So is there any real danger or is de onized fine?
 
I've been using custom watercooling for around 5 years now and ive always just used deionized water without any problems.

If somewhere local sold Distilled water i would probably buy it, but...
 
All chemists will stock distilled or order it in for you, but deionized will make no differnce to performance of longevity of your loop.
 
It's the same thing effectively, distilled has it's ions removed by the distillation process. The only real difference is that distilled should also be sterile, but you wouldn't be using it without some form of bio protection regardless as it will be contaminated as soon as you pour it into your loop (or indeed just removing the seal on the bottle).
 
distilled water has no minerals, or ions, in that can cause chemical reactions/corrosion
deionised has the ions taken out but the minerals left in
you could always boil a kettle or saucepan and direct the steam into a collecting jar and you have distilled/demineralised water free, except for leccy cost.


on the other hand a chemical place in the west midlands sell an IBC (1000ltrs) of the stuff @ approx £1.20 a litre to the place i work at, but you still need an antibacterial biocide or silver coils fitted..
i was tempted to scoop a few litres from an IBC at work but i still have a litre spare fro topping up my water loop
 
I am using "purified water" from a local chemist which after calling the company up i found out was reverse osmosis water. 8 month use and its still crystal clear using a kill coil in the res. Just use what you can source locally, distilled, deionised and RO much of a muchness :)
 
m4rmite said:
distilled water has no minerals, or ions, in that can cause chemical reactions/corrosion
deionised has the ions taken out but the minerals left in
you could always boil a kettle or saucepan and direct the steam into a collecting jar and you have distilled/demineralised water free, except for leccy cost.
Click to expand...
Minerals are removed as well from de-ionised - why do you think it's used for ironing?
 
just for info :P
". Because the majority of water impurities are dissolved salts, deionization produces a high purity water that is generally similar to distilled water, and this process is quick and without scale buildup. However, deionization does not significantly remove uncharged organic molecules, viruses or bacteria, except by incidental trapping in the resin"
 
Indeed, which is why I said that the only difference is that de-ionised won't be sterile, but since you'll need to add bio-control regardless, why spend much more for distilled when de-ionised will do exactly the same job.
 
I was going to put dehumidifier water in my system in my recent rebuild. I collected about 5 litres worth from my parents unit, but chickened out when I saw lumps floating about in it and went with deionized as I did the last time. It would probably have been alright if I'd put it through a coffee filter but I couldn't be arsed with it when it came to it.
 
+1 although I used to use Halfords Coolant Conditioner instead of Antifreeze. Back in the day before all these "specialist" coolants, everyone used antifreeze.
 
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