A plentiful supply of clean potable water is surely an essential component of a healthy living environment. However increasing living standards and population densities continue to put pressure on available water supplies, such that investment in new sources and water treatment facilities is expanding rapidly and will continue to do so for some time to come.

Whether it is to expand the purification of water from existing sources, or to bring on–stream completely new types of supply such as desalination, we find an increasing need for tubes, valves, filters and other components made from stainless steel. Its corrosion resistance is an obvious benefit for such components but so, too, are its ease of fabrication and its cleanability.

A further important consideration is the inert nature of stainless steel from a biological standpoint. Increasingly stringent water purity standards require materials that do not leach into the water significant traces of hazardous constituents.

In this section, papers and other publications describe the many ways that stainless steels help to prevent contamination of our lakes and rivers as well as to treat and distribute the water from our taps that so often we take for granted.