Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Minerals (esp Potassium) added to distilled or Rev Osmosis water - suggestions for minerals to add

RogueRose - 28-3-2018 at 13:37

The process of people adding some various "salts" (usually carbonates) to water to make their own mineral water has come up a few times but I have yet to figure out what potassium compound I could use/add to give some potassium the body canb absorb - The source of the water is reverse osmosis, distilled water machine, rain water, snow water (or run-off) and some other advanced filtration systems. This is to remove avoid the chems in public water like fluoride, lead (in some parts), medications from water treatment plants, and a lot of other worse things.

My plan is to is to pass the water I have from various sources (they all have no minerals and are basically "sterile)through a few layers of various compounds that will allow the water to pick up some minerals. I have decided to add MgCO3 & CaCO3 as I like the taste of waters that have these minerals, especially CaCO3 at the right amount!

I would really like to add some potassium compound and maybe even a sodium as well but IDK what compound would be the best choice that has very little flavor but is also able to be absorbed my the body.

Now Mg and Ca carbonates are not very soluble so I'm not worried that they will get too much by passing the water through a couple layers of the two carbonated (this is between filtering and drinking). So whatever it absorbs should be adequate and I can adjust he amounts that are going in.

As far as potassium I was thinking of using K2SO4 as I think it is relatively tasteless but it dissolves at too high a rate as compared to Ca & Mg carbonate. The only thing I can think of is to take something like 5 gallons and then add X amount of sulfate and stir till dissolved. This can be done before running through carbonate filter or after. Are there other potassium compounds that would be better than sulfate?

The other option would be to add potassium citrate as this is what makes Gatorade so kickass!
Then there is also Monopotassium Phosphate - which I have had a difficult time finding info on.

I was also thinking of adding a sodium compound and sodium citrate also came to mind (same use in gatorade) or possibly sodium sulfate.

I'm not trying to make a sports drink but something that is a healthy replacement for natural spring water that comes from stone aquifers or underground stone wells/springs.

I think this could be an interesting topic if people could see the potential health benefits of it. I already remove all the fluoride from my water and hopefully andy pesticides and pharmaceuticals by various filtration methods. Now I want to put some things back in that were taken from the reverse osmosis, distillation and even certain filtration techniques.

So what would you all suggest and are there some elements that I should look into adding to the water?

***Sorry haven't been able to sleep for some time so brain isn't workin to well.

LearnedAmateur - 28-3-2018 at 14:03

Potassium nitrate or chloride in low concentrations would work well, the bottled water I currently have out states that potassium and sodium are present at 1 and 6.5mg/L respectively, and nitrate at 3.8. Chlorides are at 10mg/L; I think you’ve made a good choice with the magnesium and calcium, by far the highest cations for me - 26 and 80mg/L, I like the taste and feel they impart as well but these seem to be present as the bicarbonates at 360. Sulphates are at 14 and the silica content is about 15 and the pH is 7.2 but none of these really matter unless you want to be extremely pedantic.

RogueRose - 28-3-2018 at 14:57

Well the reason I was thinking of the potassium & sodium citrate is because those are 2 of the 3 main electrolytes in Gatorade (which I really like) but I have to figure out how to make it. I have citric acid and I could make sodium citrate from baking soda/citric acid I think. I also have food grade KOH, which I would think would work to make potassium citrate.

The oddity is the mono potassium phosphate. I have mono ammonium phosphate which is a fertilizer (fertilizer grade) but I've recrystalized it 8x and it looks really pure, but IDK if I would trust using that to convert it to mono potassium phosphate. With those 3 you can replicate gatorade from what I've heard with addition of a few other compounds that are fairly common like sugars

Actually I've just found 4 other ingredient lists for original gatorade (not the G2 or diet - both are YUCK!!!) One lists KCl and another lists NaCl and excludes the potassium/sodium citrates but it does include citric acid. IDK if adding citric acid to a KCl/NaCl solution would make K/Na citrate and then where does the chloride ion go - to HCl (at a very low concentration??)

I can say that I used to make my own sports drink with flavoring and KCl & NaCl and it was NO WHERE near as good as gatorade (like a 2-3/10 vs a 10/10 for gatorade). I calculated the exact amount of K & Na ions needed to equal the ingredients list - the mg rating and it just wasn't good. My research there lead to the potassium phosphate & potassium citrate & sodium citrate as the means to ge the K & Na ions.

It would be really nice to figure out the formula for gatorade as it is my favorite drink (one specific flavor & a runner up) but it is so expensive even when buying bulk.

elementcollector1 - 28-3-2018 at 15:32

Why not set up a few different tanks, run the purified water through to saturation in each of these, and then serially dilute and mix to your preferred concentrations? Saves having to worry about how much will dissolve at a given flow rate.

RogueRose - 28-3-2018 at 15:52

Quote: Originally posted by elementcollector1  
Why not set up a few different tanks, run the purified water through to saturation in each of these, and then serially dilute and mix to your preferred concentrations? Saves having to worry about how much will dissolve at a given flow rate.


yeah I think i'm going to have to do this in stages. First I pass it through the Mg/Ca carbonates slowly to ensure it is saturated and then it can be diluted if need be.

Then I can add the highly soluble salts, whatever I decide them to be, to the water with the carbonates.

I can't really think of a different way to do this other than that.

My gatorade powder mix lists:
sugar
dextrose
citric acid,
SALT...
Sodium citrate
mono pot phosphate
calcium silicate (this is interesting imo)
modified food starch
nat & artificial flavors & colors.

This has totally changed from about 10 years ago. I need to find my old canisters and see what they listed back then, definitely not SALT. learning how to make Gatorade (well trying) was actually what got me interested in Chemistry because I didn't understand why KCl & NaCl just couldn't be added to Kool-aid to give gatorade. the chlorides provide the electrolytes so i figured that was the right thing. I was so naive then and couldn't have even begun to know what many of the ingredients were on the list, lol. That is kind of sad looking back, but I'm glad that I've grown a good bit since then. A big THANKS to those in the forum who have helped me along the way!

NEMO-Chemistry - 28-3-2018 at 16:03

Commercially there is stuff called RO right, its designed to add minerals to RO water..

LearnedAmateur - 28-3-2018 at 22:01

Quote: Originally posted by RogueRose  
Well the reason I was thinking of the potassium & sodium citrate is because those are 2 of the 3 main electrolytes in Gatorade (which I really like) but I have to figure out how to make it. I have citric acid and I could make sodium citrate from baking soda/citric acid I think. I also have food grade KOH, which I would think would work to make potassium citrate.

The oddity is the mono potassium phosphate. I have mono ammonium phosphate which is a fertilizer (fertilizer grade) but I've recrystalized it 8x and it looks really pure, but IDK if I would trust using that to convert it to mono potassium phosphate. With those 3 you can replicate gatorade from what I've heard with addition of a few other compounds that are fairly common like sugars

Actually I've just found 4 other ingredient lists for original gatorade (not the G2 or diet - both are YUCK!!!) One lists KCl and another lists NaCl and excludes the potassium/sodium citrates but it does include citric acid. IDK if adding citric acid to a KCl/NaCl solution would make K/Na citrate and then where does the chloride ion go - to HCl (at a very low concentration??)

I can say that I used to make my own sports drink with flavoring and KCl & NaCl and it was NO WHERE near as good as gatorade (like a 2-3/10 vs a 10/10 for gatorade). I calculated the exact amount of K & Na ions needed to equal the ingredients list - the mg rating and it just wasn't good. My research there lead to the potassium phosphate & potassium citrate & sodium citrate as the means to ge the K & Na ions.

It would be really nice to figure out the formula for gatorade as it is my favorite drink (one specific flavor & a runner up) but it is so expensive even when buying bulk.


Sure, if you want to add the citrates then I don’t see why you can’t, they’re obviously safe to consume and soluble in water, I was just thinking of minerals to replicate natural water. You can buy 100s gram bags of food grade citric acid very cheap and that’ll last a while, and I’d personally go with bicarbonate but KOH would be fine if you’re keeping a close eye on pH.

Don’t really see the need for phosphates, but I don’t think fertiliser-grade would contain anything nasty considering people chuck it on plants for consumption (I.E no heavy metals and such) but you’ll probably have to probe around Google to make sure.

It’s nothing you’d need to be concerned with, if there is any HCl there’ll be barely any in there and when you consider that gastric juices contain it at approximately 0.1M it seems pretty safe. The majority of the citrate would remain as citric acid, but again, monitoring the pH will give you the answer you need.

Personally I think that the best option is to just come up with a bunch of recipes to test, maybe 100-200mL a batch and tweak to perfection. Too salty? Add less K/Na. Too sweet? Less sugar. Too alkaline? Less bi/carbonates. That sort of stuff really, it’s well worth it if you want to make the best drink for you to consume; in which way did it ‘fail’ compared to the actual stuff?

Sulaiman - 29-3-2018 at 00:32

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_water

"The World Health Organization investigated the health effects of demineralized water in 1982, and its experiments in humans found that demineralized water increased diuresis and the elimination of electrolytes, with decreased serum potassium concentration. Magnesium, calcium, and other nutrients in water can help to protect against nutritional deficiency. Recommendations for magnesium have been put at a minimum of 10 mg/L with 20–30 mg/L optimum; for calcium a 20 mg/L minimum and a 40–80 mg/L optimum, and a total water hardness (adding magnesium and calcium) of 2–4 mmol/L. At water hardness above 5 mmol/L, higher incidence of gallstones, kidney stones, urinary stones, arthrosis, and arthropathies have been observed.[citation needed] For fluoride the concentration recommended for dental health is 0.5–1.0 mg/L, with a maximum guideline value of 1.5 mg/L to avoid dental fluorosis.[17]"

There are several references and links to follow in the article.