Living a healthier lifestyle is something numerous people are striving for these days. Some people decide to change their diet, others focus on specific workout practices, and some even look at focusing on mindfulness. Regardless of the different routes people take, the outcome of being healthier is the same. When we look at monitoring the purity of water, there are different measurement routes you can take as well. The ultimate outcome of maintaining water purity is the same. Some industries focus on monitoring conductivity, while others choose to look at resistivity.

Conductivity for Ultra Pure Water

Conductivity is the measurement of water’s ability to conduct electricity. This is the more common water purity measurement. Low conductivity water is purer, as it does not have salts, chemicals, or other impurities that would increase the conductivity. Water in its purest form would have no conductivity at all.

Resistivity as an Alternate Route

You can also measure the purity of water using resistivity. The resistivity of water is the measurement for how well the water can resist electrical currents. Resistivity is the inverse of conductivity, meaning that if water has a high resistivity it has low conductivity and is more pure. In contrast, if water has low resistivity it will have a high conductivity and will be less pure. These two methods use different units of measure. Resistivity reads in MΩ/cm and conductivity reads in μS/cm. Both measurements use the same sensor technology. If you desire a resistivity measurement, you adjust the unit of measure in the electronics to obtain the desired result.

Driven by Industry

In industrial applications, conductivity and resistivity are crucial measurements as impure water creates problems in manufacturing. Impurities could cause product quality issues or damage important equipment. For example, in power generation we monitor the conductivity of boiler feed water to ensure the water entering the boiler remains pure. Should the conductivity of the water increase, it can cause scaling and corrosion that leads to costly downtime and repairs. The semiconductor industry monitors the resistivity of plant water. Resistivity monitoring ensures product quality by maintaining the purity of the water used to clean silicon wafers during the manufacturing process. Maintaining pure water is critical to these processes and conductivity or resistivity measurement is an important part of protecting costly plant equipment and ensuring process efficiencies.

If a healthier lifestyle is something you desire, you can utilize both a diet change or a specific workout to achieve it. Similarly, you can utilize both resistivity and conductivity to monitor the purity of water. Although you choose a different route, the purpose of either measurement is to maintain water purity. Because of this, you can imagine these measurements as different routes to the same goal, just as people take different routes to a healthier lifestyle.