What is the process that makes water taste old?
In: Chemistry
Evaporation/settling of certain additives and components of the water. For instance leaving water out for 48 hours will cause all the chlorine to evaporate from it, making the taste different, or what we call “flat”.
Actually it’s nothing to do with chlorine, although the trace chlorine will evaporate out. This same thing will happen if you leave water out that’s come from a groundwater well in the countryside and that doesn’t contain chlorine.
Basically there’s a decent amount of oxygen and CO2 in the air. If you leave water out then it absorbs more oxygen from the air and through this reaction you’ll end up with trace amounts of carbonic acid in the water. This is what we can taste and this is what makes it “taste bad” but it also won’t do you any harm, it’s a very small amount.
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