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Potassium Chloride and Sodium Chloride
March 3, 2008 |
Sodium chloride is simply a fancy way of saying “salt”. The salt that you use in your water softener uses an ion exchange process to rid the softener’s media of the hardness (calcium) ions it has removed from you water.
Lately, many people have been asking if it’s okay to use potassium chloride in place of salt in their softeners. The answer is yes. Any of the salt-based water softeners we carry can all use potassium chloride instead of salt without any modification.
There are some states that are working on legislation to ban water softener brine (salt saturated water) discharge into municipal sewers. Potassium chloride is a viable alternative to brine water discharge. Some people are concerned that the brine water discharge into their septic systems will kill the necessary bacteria in the holding tanks. In reality, it is probably more likely that their common laundry detergent will kill the bacteria, but there is concern nonetheless. Then there is the concern over sodium left over from the ion exchange process in drinking water, especially for people on low sodium diets. A slice of bread contains 4 times the amount of sodium as is in an 8 ounce glass of softener water, but this too is a valid concern. For these reasons, potassium chloride can be used.
While potassium chloride is more expensive (generally about $1 per 40 pounds here in Michigan), it alleviates many of the above mentioned concerns that people have. The only other drawback to using potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride is the increased odds that your softener’s brine tank will form a “salt bridge”. Salt bridging can form when water dissolves a hollow opening underneath a pile of salt or potassium pellets/crystals. The brine grid we include with nearly all of our water softener systems is designed to prevent this from occurring.
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