Study Of Device To Remove Iron

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31908, 8 February 1969, Page 42

Study Of Device To Remove Iron

(New Zealand Press Association)

HAMILTON, February 7.

Officers from the Department of Agriculture inspected today an instrument that it is claimed will remove much of the iron content of water.

Demonstrations of the instrument took place at Orini and Springdale, where some

|Of the instruments have been set up for some time. I The instrument, developed Iby a Hamilton firm, drip feeds a chemical into farm water supplies. The chemical, it is claimed, removes the iron.

Mr E. Hamilton, well drilling manager of Newton King, Ltd, said that most New Zealand farm water supplies had a particularly high iron content. Water from some artesian bores had been known to reach as high as 200 parts iron per million. Department of Health recommendations say that the iron content of water supplies should not exceed one I part per million. ( Although a high iron content is not harmful to health it tastes and smells unpleasant in water and gives it a rusty, muddy colour. Today, Mr D. Scott, farm machinery officer from the Department of Agriculture in Auckland, and his Hamilton counterpart, Mr R. McDonnell, watched the instrument in action. Where the iron content was high the water was unpalatable to stock and also to human beings. Iron was normally insoluble in water but it was frequently maintained in solution by the presence of carbonic acid. Removal of the carbonic acid in the form of carbon dioxide resulted in the precipitation of the iron to .the bottom of the tank or trough, where it formed a yellow sludge.