It’s a familiar story here at FreshPure® Waters. A customer happily fills their bottle with FreshPure® Alkaline water at their local grocery store. Just to be sure the pH is above 9, they go home and test it with a pH test strip (aka litmus paper) to confirm. Inevitably, the customer will be unpleasantly surprised by the result. Why? Because pH test strips are the incorrect testing method for highly filtered water like FreshPure.
We want you to feel confident about our water, so, here’s how to test the pH of FreshPure Alkaline Water.
To get started, here’s a little rundown about the pH scale.
Wait, what IS pH?
Ready for a quick high school chemistry refresher? Here we go.
pH stands for “potential for hydrogen,” and it measures how acidic or alkaline a substance is. A high concentration of hydrogen ions creates acidity, while a low concentration creates alkalinity.
OK, so why did the pH test strip give a different reading?
Litmus paper and pH test strips are designed to determine the pH of liquids such as chlorinated pools, vinegar, baking soda solutions, cleaning products, saliva, and urine. These liquids all have high quantities of minerals, salts, electrolytes, and many other substances dissolved into them. These factors affect not only pH but another important level: Total Dissolved Solids (TDS). TDS refers to the amount of solids dissolved into a substance, measured in parts per million (ppm). Litmus paper and pH test strips only report accurately for TDS levels that are typically well below the TDS of FreshPure Waters.
Essentially, what this means is that FreshPure® Water Reverse Osmosis technology, which filters down to 1/10,000th of a micron and is the foundation of our Alkaline Water, makes accurate testing with pH strips highly unreliable.
Additionally, paper strips easily degrade, and they may not have soaked up enough of the substance being tested to create the right chemical reaction for color change in the paper itself. All of this combined makes pH test strips and litmus paper a low-moderate accuracy test.
What is the best way to test the pH of FreshPure Alkaline Water?
Use a Wide Range pH Test Kit using Liquid Reagent Drops
Every time our technicians visit your store, they test the pH manually with a Wide Range pH Test Kit using Liquid Reagent Drops.
According to chemists at the Water Quality Association, it’s important to use accurate testing methods. A Wide Range pH Test Kit utilizes reagent drops to measure pH levels of low TDS, highly filtered water like ours. They are much more reliable and accurate than pH strips.
Customers sometimes ask about digital pH meters, a commonly recommended way to test pH. High-volume systems like ours place considerable strain on a digital pH meter, causing it to produce inconsistent results that are sometimes misleading. That’s why our technicians manually test the pH at every location on a regular schedule. If the pH is ever out of range, we immediately post an Out of Order sign and call in a repair. You can even see the most recent test date on our service log, which is always posted at the FreshPure water refill dispenser!
Questions?
We hope this helps! And, we truly love hearing from our customers.
Please feel free to call and ask us any questions that arise about the science behind this testing process at: 1 (800) 471-5200