Distilled water, including RO Water should always be used fresh- viz. do not
fill or use an overly large storage tank for distillate. Where premium
distilled water is required say for your silver solutions, Warthin Starry
etc, the distillate must be fresh and not contaminated with anything older
than a few hours- so empty your storage tank first or use a clean schott
bottle out of the cupboard.
Distilled water rapidly becomes acidic and even in 24hrs you can expect a pH
of 5.5-6.0
Regards Mike Rentsch (Downunder)
-----Original Message-----
From: Linda Jenkins <jlinda@ces.clemson.edu>
To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu <histonet@pathology.swmed.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 18 November 1998 8:46
Subject: pH of distilled water


>Histonetters,
> Even though I'm from the "Hills of Tennessee" the workings of
>"stills" continue to elude me.  Checked the pH of  our building's distilled
>water as it came out of the tank - it was 5.1 and the regular tap water
>going into the distiller was 6.3.  Last spring I cleaned the distiller's
>500gal Nalgene holding tank with a procedure that used Chlorox, lots of
>rinsing, hydrogen peroxide, lots more rinsing.  This cleaning procedure
>came straight from Nalgene headquarters and took about two weeks to
>complete.  In the meantime, the 20+yr old distiller was left sitting idle.
>I know most appliances do not appreciate being left idle for great lenghts
>of time.  Any thoughts on what could be happening to cause such a low pH?
> Thanks,
> Linda
>
>*********************************
>Linda Jenkins, HT
>Clemson University
>Department of Bioengineering
>Clemson, SC
>**********************************
>
>
>