Abundant supplies of fresh water are essential to industrial development. Enormous quantities are required for cooling of products and equipment, for process needs, for boiler feed and for sanitary and potable water. It was estimated, in 1980, that the water requirements for industry in the USA approximated 525 billion liters per day. A substantial quantity of this water was reused. The intake of "new" water was estimated to be about 140 billion liters daily. If this water was pure and contained no contaminants, there would be little need for water conditioning or water treatment.
Water possesses several unique properties, one being its ability to dissolve to some degree every substance occurring on the earth's crust and in the atmosphere. Because of this solvent property, water typically contains a variety of impurities. These impurities are a source of potential trouble through deposition of the impurities in water lines, boiler tubes and on products which are contacted by it.
Dissolved oxygen, the principal gas present in water, is responsible for costly replacement of piping and equipment by corrosive attack on metals with which it comes in contact. The origin of all water supply is moisture that has been evaporated from land masses and oceans and subsequently precipitated from the atmosphere. Depending on weather conditions, this may fall in the form of rain, snow, sleet or hail. As it falls, this precipitation contacts gases comprising the atmosphere and suspended particulates in the form of dust, industrial smoke and fumes, and volcanic dust and gases.
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