In other site, someone claimed that pure water is very corrosive.
Water distilled for some laboratory uses (like the Z-pinch reactor) is distilled to 0.00000009% purity, and is caustic enough to burn through most things.
Water, purified enough, cannot be distributed through stainless steel pipes. Instead, they use glass pipes to transport it within the plants where it's made.
For sure, caustic is not the correct word, since water is neutral.
But, is it that corrosive? Or is it even less than water with salt?
Answer
That quote had false statements all over it.
Type I ultra pure water (Milli-Q water, or others) are fairly common among all labs. They are not corrosive to stainless steel.
As @chipbuster said, purified water is never distributed through stainless steel partly because concern of contamination. Metal reacts not only with oxygen, but also many pollutants in the air. Overtime on metal surface will build up a layer that has all kind of compounds in them. When water flows through, ions get picked up.
However, the most major reason would be that glass is better in all respect. The reason glasswares are commonly used in the lab have little to do with pure water. Glasswares are relatively stable across wide range of pH and very hard to be oxidized or reduced. Plus, glasswares are cheap, extremely easy to manufacture, and transparent, so you can see through. You will really only need metal if extreme pressure or temperature is required.
As a matter of fact, it is also unwise to use glassware to distribute ultrapure water--you will get ion contaminations from glass as well. Purified water are actually almost always stored in plastic containers and distributed through plastic tubes.
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