Well I am not confusing anything. salt is NaCl which dissociates in water to Na+ and
Cl-. Cl-, BTW is what makes food taste "salty". The sodium ions are exchanged for
the calcium and magnesium ions in the water which are stabilized with the chloride
ions which are flushed down the drain. The sodium stays in the softened water. This
is a BIG issue with people who keep fish because some places have so much calcium
and/or magnesium in their water that the sodium ion concentration is thus high enough
to sicken and/or kill their fish. This is even a bigger problem when people use salt
prophylactically without testing for sodium ion concentration. It is the chloride
ions that are helpful to fish, not the sodium.

In addition physicians typically admonish their patients with high blood pressure to
not drink softened water, rather, to use RO water for drinking. Ingrid


On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 08:43:40 -0500, "J. Clarke" wrote:
You're confusing "sodium" with "salt". The process is that sodium
ions are picked up on the surface of the zeolite. Not "salt", just
one of the chemical components of it. Those are exchanged for
less-reactive calcium and magnesium ions in the water, so calcium
carbonate (or magnesium sulfate or whatever) gets turned into sodium
carbonate (or sodium sulfate or whatever) with a slight release of
energy. The calcium and magnesium ions then remain on the suface of
the zeolite until such time as it is regenerated by exposure to sodium
chloride at which time it picks up the sodium ions and the calcium
goes into the brine as calcium chloride.

So the softened water has no "salt" added, what is has is the existing
calcium and magnesium compounds turned into sodium compounds. The
quantity of the compounds doesn't change, what changes is their
chemical composition.

If you think that a water softener works by "adding salt" then try
adding salt to hard water and then have the hardness checked with and
without salt and see what you get.

--