Drinking water limits: 100 mg/l (ppm) or 250 mg/l if chlorides come from the bedrock
- If the limit is significantly exceeded, a salty taste of the water may occur
- Otherwise colorless, tasteless, odorless
- Nausea of the water odor – individual sensitivity
- Otherwise colorless, tasteless, odorless
- Higher corrosion of metallic devices
Removing chlorides from water
- Principle: reverse osmosis
Chlorides are an essential element for living organisms, including humans. In water they are one of the most common constituents. Therefore are they not harmful to health. However, their excess manifests by higher corrosive effect on metallic materials. Too saline water (i.e. containing high amounts of dissolved salts, most often chlorides) may have negative effects on irrigated plants, but in this case it is better to control the conductivity of water than the chloride content (see Conductivity).
Chlorides are rarely found in groundwater, only in the case of a specific bedrock. In surface water in rivers their content gradually grows towards the mouth of the river into the sea. Into surface waters they enter either by human activity or by exudates and residuals of living organisms. Ionexes used to remove nitrates (anion exchangers) release chlorides into water during the ion exchange (they remove harmful nitrates from the water and release chlorides in their place).
Reverse osmosis is used to reduce chlorides content. In coastal areas, this technology is used, for example, to desalinate seawater. Because reverse osmosis removes all minerals (demineralisation) almost completely, the so-called by-pass is used. Part of the water flows through the bypass past the reverse osmosis and behind it mixes with demineralized water to obtain a suitable mineral content.
