Difference Between Purified and Spring Water

The key difference between purified and spring water is that we produce purified water by mechanically processing water in order to remove any impurities whereas spring water comes from natural sources where we do not perform any mechanical purifications. Furthermore, the purified water has no impurities or dissolved minerals but, the spring water contains minerals.

Water is essential for all of us, and it is an inorganic compound that is very common on earth’s crust. However, it is a good solvent; thus, water that naturally occurs, contain different components dissolved in it. Therefore, we should purify water before using it for specific purposes such as drinking. Springs are natural sources of water that has almost pure water.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Purified Water
3. What is Spring Water
4. Side by Side Comparison – Purified vs Spring Water in Tabular Form
5. Summary

What is Purified Water?

Purified water is the water that we get by purifying water from any source. This purification includes mechanical processes such as filtration in order to remove impurities. Purified water is suitable for use. The most common form is distilled water. The recent purification methods are capacitive deionization, reverse osmosis, carbon filtering, microfiltration, ultrafiltration, etc.

There are several parameters that we use to measure the water quality (if water is pure or not) such as the pH, conductivity, BOD, COD, etc. Usually, we produce purified water from either drinking water or groundwater. There are several types of impurities in these sources; inorganic ions, organic compounds, bacteria, particulates, gases, etc.

The techniques that we can use for the purification are as follows:

• Simple distillation
• Double distillation
• Deionization
• Demineralization

When considering the uses of purified water, it includes autoclaving purposes, hand-pieces, laboratory testing, laser cutting, and automotive uses. In the process of purification, it removes any contaminants in water. Therefore it also is useful for the pharmaceutical industry and for the production of commercial beverages. However, there are some health concerns regarding purified water. Since the purification technique removes all the minerals from water, it is not healthier to use as drinking water.

What is Spring Water?

Spring water is the water that we obtain from springs. A spring is a location where water flows on to the earth’s crust from aquifers. Therefore it is a component of the hydrosphere. This water contains dissolved minerals. This is because mineral dissolves in water when this water passes through underground rocks. This provides the water with a flavour and also, there can be carbon dioxide bubbles depending on the condition in the underground through which the water passes. Therefore, we can name this water as mineral water and some people bottle this water to sell as mineral water.

Usually, this water is clear, but sometimes it may have a colour if there are some mineral dissolved in this water. When considering the uses of spring water, the uses include human needs such as drinking, domestic water supply, irrigation, mills, navigation, electricity generation, etc.

What is the Difference Between Purified and Spring Water?

Purified water is the water that we get by purifying the water from any source whereas spring water is the water that we obtain from the springs. A major difference between purified and spring water is that the purified water is pure and has no impurities or dissolved minerals while spring water contains minerals, which dissolve when this water passes through underground rocks. Furthermore, the spring water comes on to the earth’s crust from underground aquifers whereas purified water is a man-made form of water which we prepare from the mechanical purification of drinking water or groundwater. Therefore, this is the key difference between purified and spring water.

The below infographic presents more details on the difference between purified and spring water.

Summary – Purified vs Spring Water

Both purified water and spring water are quality water which has many applications. The key difference between purified and spring water is that we produce purified water by mechanically processing water in order to remove any impurities whereas spring water comes from natural sources where we do not perform any mechanical purifications.

Reference:

1. “Purified Water.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Sept. 2018. Available here  
2. “Spring (Hydrology).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Sept. 2018. Available here

Image Courtesy:

1.”Cation anion ion exchange”By Z22 – Own work, (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Commons Wikimedia  
2.”Big Spring Missouri 1-02Aug08″By I, Kbh3rd, (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia