Fake Water Tester Scam

[JQH]

Here is a video purporting to show that most bottled water is full of dangerous chemicals by passing a current through it. Tap water and bottled water goes brown, distilled water stays clear so buy our filter/still/distilled water!!!

Nothing of the kind of course. Distilled water does not conduct electricity very well but the others, containing dissolved minerals, do. The bubbling is hydrogen and oxygen being given off as the water electrolyses. The negative oxygen ions will attack the metal of the anode producing insoluble metal oxides and that is the source of the brown gunk. The "tester" is actually contaminating the water!

[Boustrophedon]

I kept getting junk mail from a company pulling this scam. I reported them to trading standards and they got done.

[shpalman]

See also the detox foot bath (although I was looking for some other blog post about fake water purification based on the same trick).

[basementer]

See also the detox foot bath (although I was looking for some other blog post about fake water purification based on the same trick).

Dr Goldacre once wrote about borrowing a doll from his girlfriend and creating Detox Foot Spa Barbie.

[sTeamTraen]

Nothing of the kind of course. Distilled water does not conduct electricity very well but the others, containing dissolved minerals, do. The bubbling is hydrogen and oxygen being given off as the water electrolyses. The negative oxygen ions will attack the metal of the anode producing insoluble metal oxides and that is the source of the brown gunk. The "tester" is actually contaminating the water!

I thought I was good at school chemistry, but I only recently learned that the white scum on boiling water is tiny crystals of dissolved (Mg/Ca) (CO3/HCO3) coming out of solution at the edge of the bubbles. So I can imagine how someone with absolutely zero understanding of chemistry could be impressed by this sort of thing.

[JQH]

My post was a criticism of the scammers not the scammed.

[sTeamTraen]

My post was a criticism of the scammers not the scammed.

Of course. I was just trying to note that this is quite likely to be an effective scam as there is probably a substantial pool of potential victims. Apologies if this came across wrong.