How To Remove Copper From Drinking Water | 10 Simple Steps

Written by Tim Rhodes Last Updated: Sep 4, 2024

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Copper is an element needed by the body in small quantities, but sometimes, there’s an over-accumulation of copper in water, hence, a knowledge of how to remove copper from drinking water is necessary.

As mentioned above, copper is a necessary trace element, whose deficiency can cause serious health problems to the body if not consumed in a controlled quantity.

This, however, is not the case in the current scenario, for copper accumulation in drinking water has been a major issue.

Studies have shown that if the amount of copper in your drinking water is more than 1.3 parts per million, then it’s toxic for your health.

Copper toxicity can result in liver, kidney, or gastrointestinal distress, which if neglected can cause serious damages to health.

In this article, we show 10 steps/methods on how to remove copper from drinking water and make it devoid of copper traces, such that the copper limit stays within a certain threshold, to prevent health complications.

Step 1: Direct Neutralization Of Drinking Water

A neutral water level of pH 7.0 is preferable, to avoid any complications due to excessive acidity or basicity of total water quality.

Most of the time, the well water or direct supply water, end up providing water which has a pH level of 6.0. which is on the acidic side.

This ends up corroding the interiors of the plumbing system, which introduces copper to the water supply, hence serving as a potential risk to the overall supply.

Few examples where this phenomenon can be observed include tubs, sinks, and toilets, which end up having blue or green strains, due to the deposition of copper on their surfaces.

One of the ways to avoid this is, by re-neutralizing the water back to 7.0 pH, to keep it from corroding the copper pipes.

This can be majorly done by the installation of acid neutralizer tanks, at the level where the water enters your household.

The next step is to fire the tank in such a way, that it’s sized to the household, attached along with an automatic backwashing head while filling it with garnet and gravel based overlaid, by a calcite media.

This introduces a backwash pressure, that can prevent the entry of copper into drinking water.

The calcite can neutralize the acid and changes the water pH level back to neutral, which is 7.0, hence stopping the pipes from shedding copper.

This method is more focussed on water supply infrastructures, which have the requirement to supply more than 5 households, as the installation of units can be more expensive for every unit.

A single unit is attached at the inflow, to serve the purpose, while providing clean copper devoid water, to every household

Step 2: Flushing The Water System

Another method that can be applied if the copper in your water comes from the plumbing facilities, is to run the cold water on single pieced faucets, at least 15 seconds before using it.

This step has been recommended, to keep the copper contaminants in check, but not to a level that they can be used, for various other purposes.

Performing the flushing process 10-15 seconds before cooking or drinking is mainly adopted, when someone doesn’t have a water treatment system and the same water can be used, for numerous purposes.

It is also safe to use the flushed water for purposes like household purposes like laundry, cleaning, and in the dishwasher, but it must be avoided to use the hot flushed water for cooking as the heated water contains a higher proportion of copper.

The Flushing process has its limits, as the process works only when the water has been pre-treated by the municipality or the water company, hence removing a lot of the copper content from the water.

If the copper contamination is beyond a certain level or at an elevated level, then the first step should be to keep a check on them and reduce it below EPA limits.

If the EPA limits are within the desired range and the water is still not devoid of copper until the generated threshold, then it’s due to copper plumbing, and the pH level of water would mostly be under 6.5.

To eliminate copper from this pattern, an acid neutralizer is best, to balance out the pH and provide the household with neutral drinking water.

Step 3: Using Reverse Osmosis

Reverse Osmosis is a method of purifying drinking water, by using a special type of filtration technique.

This technique, uses a semi-permeable membrane, with pores that are sized in a way, that passes pure water while rejecting larger molecules such as dissolved salts/ions, and other impurities like bacteria.

This works by forcing the water through the membrane, in such a way that the copper ions are blocked and allows for freshwater to appear, from the other side of the membrane deposits.

Even though it’s a very cost-effective process, yet, they could initially produce a very small amount of water, measuring up to a few gallons of treated water per day.

However, there have been recent improvements in membrane technology and elements, that can produce 100 or more gallons of water, per day. 

In homes, reverse osmosis systems are usually small systems (called point-of-use systems), located near the kitchen sink.

This step has been recommended, to keep the copper contaminants in check but not to a level, that they can be used for various other purposes.

Pressure plays a major role in such processes, as it is necessary to overcome the natural direction of the flow.

This, usually, would be for pure water to diffuse into the mineral containing water, hence, demanding for a correct amount of pressure to be applied, depending on the mineral content of raw water.

This process is majorly for reducing copper contamination level, but its applications are impractical and costly, unless it is already in use for the treatment of brackish water, with the main concern being the construction of the plant.

This technique has been used to produce highly purified water for drinking systems, industrial boilers, food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical industry, seawater desalination, and various other applications.

Step 4: Distillation Systems To Prevent Copper Contamination

This method of preventing copper contamination, makes use of a distillation process, to remove dissolved solids in water, while being very handy, such that they can be placed in the kitchen counter.

The process involves the volatilization of water, to separate it from all dissolved or suspended materials, which may or may not be volatilized. 

Most of the time, the water is heated under pressure, to improve its thermal efficiency, hence, recovering some of the heat in the due course of processing.

The outcome of this step produces very low dissolved solids, which is corrosive to the distribution system.

Ultimately, it’s necessary to increase the hardness of the water, which can be accomplished by the appropriate blending of the finished water and the raw water.

This is followed by pretreatment of the feedwater, which might be necessary to remove the suspended solids and calcium, to prevent any sort of scaling.

Even though these systems are limited to producing small amounts of water per day, additional costs are incurred from boiling the water electrically, making the total cost, higher than that of reverse osmosis systems.

Distillation is a relatively expensive and impractical solution, for the removal of specific contaminants from water.

It involves the removal of a large volume of water, from a small amount of dissolved material.

The cost of the plant construction is, about $1.2 million for a 1000 m3/day plant, and the operating cost for energy is high since there is only partial heat recovery, in this process.

Despite these hurdles, this is one of the most common processes applied, to remove copper from drinking water.

Step 5: Lime Soda Softening Method

Most of the methods mentioned above, generally make use of either gravitational deposits or the pressure deposition techniques.

However, lime-soda softening technique makes use of precipitation over a while, to get the best residual output.

This technique is effective, for the removal of copper by the precipitation of copper hydroxide.

This is later carried down with the calcium carbonate and magnesium hydroxide precipitates, to put forward the final residual output.

This process is majorly used for the softening of water while making use of two major ingredients, which are Calcium hydroxide alongside soda ash, that over time give rise to Calcium oxide and Sodium Carbonate.

Nowadays, this process is combined with newer membrane processes, to put forward greater efficiency to reduce waste streams, and also to provide a stream of substantially reduced hardness and TDS.

Lime-soda ash sludges may be treated with lagoons, vacuum filtration, centrifugation, pressure filtration, recalcination, or land application, to provide for more space in terms of the purification process.

Even though these systems are limited to producing small amounts of water per day, additional costs are incurred from the usage of electricity to boil the water, hence making the total cost higher, than that of reverse osmosis systems.

This step has been recommended, to keep the copper contaminants in check but not to a level that they can be used, for various other purposes.

Overall, the lime softening method has been around for a long time and is considered to be an efficient and classical method of achieving drinking water devoid of copper.

Step 6: Electrodialysis

This process of removing copper from drinking water involves the removal of salts, by selective ionic membranes, and a DC, to assist the transport of the ion across the membranes.

A depletion of ions occurs on one side of the membrane, and if the current passes for a long time, there will be a concentration on the other side of the membrane, as well.

This is a very efficient method, as any level of desalting can be achieved, by increasing the time of residence or by increasing the current density of the overall process itself.

For very efficient operation, good water treatment is required, which should include oxidation of iron and soluble organics, carbon filtration, coagulation of colloidal particles, and so on, to achieve the desired result.

The overall cost of this procedure majorly depends, on the level of contamination that needs to be reduced and it is in general, more costly than the reverse osmosis process.

If the copper contamination is beyond a certain level or at an elevated level, then the first step should be to keep a check on them and reduce it below EPA limits.

The outcome of this step produces a very low dissolved solid which is corrosive to the distribution system.

Thus, it’s necessary to increase the hardness of the water, which can be accomplished by the appropriate blending of the finished water and the raw water.

A modern solution for the ongoing problems due to water contamination can be solved with this process, as it is the end product methodology for the purification step, due to its reliability.

Step 7: Ion Exchange Filters

Ion exchange filters work by removing ions of copper while adsorbing them onto mineral particles or on resins.

This usually takes place in filter cartridges, that may be a part of point-of-use systems or point-of-entry systems, that treat all water entering the house.

One issue with this technique is, that the filters must be changed periodically, to maintain its effectiveness over time, because the particles either occur naturally or synthetically,

In practice, the synthetically produced particles tend to be more commonly used, as they can be tailored for specific applications.

For the removal of copper, a resin is generally used which is polystyrene-based.

Since copper is a heavy metal, it can only be removed from water via the process of selective ion exchange, where a chelating agent with a high affinity for copper, is chosen and mixed with iminodiacetate group introductions.

The resin is distributed in two places, which are placed in series and the water is allowed to pass through the same resin twice.

This helps in increasing the certainty, that the maximum portion of copper, gets removed from the water.

The removal efficiency by using this technique is 95 percent for copper (up to a level of 20 mg/L), by using the ion exchange softener, along with the calcium and magnesium hardness that has been induced.

The ions that are rejected are washed away from the resin using a brine solution, hence making regeneration of the resin with brine possible, when the resin becomes saturated with the elements being removed.

Since ion exchange softening removes all the hardness, it is necessary to blend the finished water with untreated water or to treat the finished water, to prevent corrosion of the distribution system.

Step 8: Activated Carbon Technique

Activated Carbon is the major method via which the carbon removal and reduction from drinking water can be done, including any additional contaminant presence.

It’s used in many facilities, from landfills to industrial wastewater, etc, it remains one of the world’s most powerful adsorbents.

The usage of carbon to remove contaminants can be done in various ways, with one such method being, to use single treatment for discharge flow, to get a direct result but with lesser efficiency for cleanliness.

Another way is to make use of multi-filtration strategy, which leads to over 80% removal rate, as identified by the European Union, under the Dangerous Substance Discharges Directive of 1976

The major contaminants that can be removed using activated charcoal include; pesticides, adsorbable organic halogens, and non-biodegradable organic compounds.

One thing to bear in mind is, activated carbon systems don’t remove free copper, from water.

Rather, they bind to organic substances in water and if those substances contain copper, then an activated carbon system will remove them.

There are many other factors such as particle size, flow rate, pH, etc, that determine the performance of this technique.

The largest mesh size that has been available for activated carbon is 20 by 50 mesh, hence, providing for better copper removal efficiency, with a greater pressure drop requirements.

One issue with this technique is, that the filters must be changed periodically to maintain its effectiveness over time.

This is because, the particles either occur naturally or synthetically, in practice the synthetically produced particles tend to be more commonly used.

The lower the rate of flow, the more time there is for the absorption of contaminants, and the better the contaminant removal overall.

Hence, a lower pH will result in most organics being more readily absorbed, with the efficiency reducing as pH rises.

Step 9: Rapid Boiling Technique

If E. coli is suspected in water supply and a filtration process is not available, the water can be boiled for a minimum of one minute, to remove the E. coli before using the water for anything.

Discard any food that has previously been used or been touched by the contaminated water, and wash surfaces well with an antibacterial household cleaner.

The body appears to be able to maintain the necessary balance for these metals, despite wide variations in intake, except in certain diseases such as Wilson’s disease, in which excessive levels of copper accumulate.

As a ‘do-it-yourselfer’ with moderate plumbing skills, you can install a fix, to remove copper yourself or opt for professional help, in terms of heavy boiling materials.

There are many other factors such as particle size, flow rate, pH, etc, that determine the performance of this technique.

The largest mesh size that has been available for activated carbon is 20 by 50 mesh, hence, providing for better copper removal efficiency but in cost with greater pressure drop requirements.

A modern solution for the ongoing problems due to water contamination can be solved with this process while being the end product methodology for the purification step, ultimately being very very reliable to be used.

Step 10: Brita Combination Ion Technique

This technique can be thought of, as a combination of the traditional boiling and the usage of ion exchange filters, to put forward a water sample, devoid of any copper particles.

The outcome of this step produces a very low dissolved solid which is corrosive to the distribution system.

Hence, it’s necessary to increase the hardness of the water, which can be accomplished by the appropriate blending of the finished water and the raw water.

Since ion exchange softening removes all the hardness, it is necessary to blend the finished water with untreated water or to treat the finished water, to prevent corrosion of the distribution system.

Nowadays, this process is combined with newer membrane processes, to put forward greater efficiency to reduce waste streams, and also to provide a stream of substantially reduced hardness and TDS.

This process is, majorly to reduce copper contamination level, however, it can be expensive.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the perfect procedure is the one that is cost-effective and at the same time providing higher rates for freshwater, without compromising on minimum thresholds of copper contamination, in the drinking water.

Even an additional milligram of copper present in drinking water can cause hazardous consequences to the body, and this should be avoided at any cost, by the usage of appropriate techniques, in line with the water quality in the region.

The best method is, to make use of the flushing technique to get away with higher and cleaner outputs while making sure that the infrastructural integrity is kept intact.

With this article, you now have a robust knowledge, on how to remove copper from drinking water.

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