Lamy bottles ink refills

[Mercian]

1 hour ago, david-p said:

But what would be the advantage of de-ionised water over distilled?

De-ionised water will contain no ions (electrically-charged particles).
I have no idea what components are in fountain pen inks, but ions are chemically-reactive. As such, I presume that they might interact with ink components. Probably not as severely as ‘hard’ tap-water (which contains Calcium ions and Carbonate ions, and e.g. I can sometimes smell chlorine that has been put in as a disinfectant after leaks, and who knows what else?), but I would anticipate the potential for chemical reactions from water that was not thoroughly de-ionised.

 

That all said, I presume that you’re probably right that bottled distilled water would be sufficiently-inert for the purposes of making ink out of pellets.

 

N.b. My comments on this matter must be taken with a pinch of salt (to aid in the creation of a Buffer Solution?), since I am no chemist, and haven’t studied any chemistry at all in about 35 years 😁

 

[A Smug Dill]

16 hours ago, david-p said:

What would be wrong with using distilled water, as sold everywhere for steam irons?

 

3 hours ago, david-p said:

Well, for the past 20+ years it has always been available where I have shopped, in the UK, USA and EU, so I assume that people other than I use it!

 

None of the two-and-a-half supermarket chains (Coles and Woolworths, and the much smaller ALDI being the ‘half’), that dominate the Australian market nationally, carry genuinely distilled water as a regularly and widely available product in their stores, in most of the past decade from what I've seen. (It may be available in select stores — as in a handful of the Coles supermarkets here or there in select suburbs, out of its 800-odd stores in nation-wide.)

 

4 hours ago, david-p said:

But what would be the advantage of de-ionised water over distilled?

 

None, other than being more readily available here. Coles carries its own-branded demineralised (i.e. deionised) water in all its stores, but no expressly — as in stating on the product label what the production process is — steam-condensed distilled water products. Woolworths carries an equivalent product with the Refresh brand; Refresh Waters also produces steam-condensed distilled water with the same brand, but those products are not in the supermarket chain's regular product range.

[arcfide]

4 hours ago, david-p said:

The small holes and tubes of an iron can easily be blocked by scale deposits. Distilled water is also not expensive.

 

Oh, I agree, it's obviously a good idea from a maintenance and "good practice" perspective. I just thought it was a great example because much like the proposition here regarding inks, I think almost everyone I know who might buy such ink packets (for cost, say), would just as likely say that tap water was good enough and just fine, much like they already do with a real example (irons). On the other hand, maybe those people might be tolerant enough of such things that the inconsistency in the ink might not bother them? 

[david-p]

7 hours ago, Mercian said:

. I can sometimes smell chlorine that has been put in as a disinfectant after leaks, and who knows what else?

I have lived in civilized parts of the world where you always smell chlorine in the water.  Where I live now, I cannot smell it, and there appears to be no significant lime scale. (London was terrible for scum floating on bath water in the 1960s!)

 

That said, it seems that many of us flush out our pens at the kitchen sink, using tap water and traces of washing up liquid (I do also) and it seems to solve rather than create problems.

 

David

[Astronymus]

The only difference between deionized and destilled water is the production method. Deionized water is produced by osmosis. Destilled water by heating water and liquifying the steam. That makes the production of destilled water more energy consuming and expensive.

Both waters are free of ions. But only destilled water is considered sterilized. Deionized water has to be sterilized in an additional process.