How do I purify water contaminated with Acrythane paint?

[Pleiades]

A little back story first, here in Bermuda we use our roofs to catch rainwater. We have no lakes or rivers; all of our water comes from the rain or is desalinated from brackish/marine water. In order to keep the roofs clean, they are power washed and painted every few years. To make a long story short: while painting our roof, some of the paint washed off and got into the storage tank, and now our water supply (about 17,000 gallons) is contaminated with paint. The water is now slightly cloudy and has a very slight paint smell; I also noticed a very small amount of foaming when shaken. I estimate the cost of wasting the water and replacing it to be just over $1000 USD for the whole tank.

 

I am going to try and get some more info from the local company that makes the paint, but they mention on their website that the paint used is Acrythane paint. I did a search for Acrythane and came up with this MSDS (http://www.abccompounding.com/MSDS/LA-489%20MSDS.pdf) this may not be the exact mixture, but I believe it to be the main ingredient.

 

My problem now is: how do I remove Diethylene Glycol Butyl ether, Dibutyl Phthalate and Ethylene Glycol from my water? Any and all methods of removal are welcome; I want to know all the ways I can do it before I decide which is feasible. Reverse osmosis? Carbon filters? Thanks in advance for any help; the issue is putting my family under a lot of stress.

[YT2095]

I`de go with the activated charcoal filter personaly.

I have (and use) a full face Avon S10 NBC gasmask for some of my experiments, and can sit pefectly happily in a room full of Chlorine gas and smell absoultely nothing, gas dense enough to knock you on your a$$!

 

now Chlorine is a very small molecule, unlike the ones you mentioned, so if it`ll block Chlorine, it`ll certainly remove your contaminant

 

it`s also alot faster than reverse osmosis.

[Hephaestus]

Yep, I agree. Active carbon should work a treat, except maybe for the ethylene glycol. You definately dont want any of that left in your water.

[Pleiades]

Well I tried it and it didn’t remove the cloudiness form the water, I'm not sure if the cloudiness is from the chemicals or from the titanium dioxide pigment. The water tasted better after 3 passes, but it isn’t the best test. Maybe I’ll try a Brita water filter. Does anyone know of a way to test for these chemicals?

[DV8 2XL]

If indeed it is titanium dioxide you want to filter out you need a diatomaceous earth filter after the carbon.

[YT2095]

aluminium sulphate should bind to the particulate matter and make it settle out in a way easily trapped by an ordinary sand filter also.

 

I don`t know how much per gallon is used, you`de need to research that, but it`s what the water compaies use in their treatment plants as a floculant.

[Pleiades]

Sorry, I wasn’t clear in my last post. I was planning on using the cloudiness of the water as an indicator but the cloudiness is probably caused by the titanium dioxide, so even if the water is clarified, I don’t know that the other chemicals are removed. As far as I know, titanium dioxide is non toxic when ingested and is also tasteless, so I'm not particularly worried about getting it out. The problem is, I have no way of empirically testing for the presence of the other contaminates to know if the filtration has worked.