the.com/deionizer
A machine that strips water of its personality until it's chemically boring.
means A device that removes dissolved ions (mineral salts, metals) from water by passing it through resin beads, leaving water that's chemically pure but tastes flat.
from A straightforward 20th-century technical compound: the prefix 'de-' (removing or undoing) plus 'ionizer,' from 'ion,' the Greek word for 'going' (ἰόν, the present participle of ienai, 'to go'). Michael Faraday coined 'ion' in the 1830s for charged particles that migrate toward electrodes during electrolysis — they go somewhere. 'Deionizer' simply names the machine that undoes that going, stripping water of its charged travelers.
- removes
- dissolved salts and minerals via ion exchange resin
- not the same as
- distillation, which boils instead of swaps ions
- used in
- labs, aquariums, and steam irons that hate scale
- leaves behind
- water so pure it tastes oddly flat