As I was writing this blog post, I already knew what was contaminating my water when it referred to nickel, but some of this things are so surprising. In a way we never really know how much nickel we ingest since water is our main source of existence. So a little disclaimer for all of you who don’t know, for nickel sensitive sufferers, it takes 1.10-12.35 ppm (parts per million) for a cutaneous reaction. So, keep this in mind when you are reading through this.
Sea Water
According to Knauer and Martin, in the past three years, more consistent results have presented other metals and nickel in our seawater. These trace metals are present in seawater at much lower concentration levels than previously believed and that they appear to have well-defined distributions in the world’s oceans. Seawater contains approximately 0.0005-0.002 ppb of nickel.
— Knauer and Martin
Tap Water
According to this article, hot water gave higher values of nickel than cold water. After flushing the water for 5 min, low values of nickel were found. Considerable variation from time to time and from tap to tap was found, indicating that there wasn’t a set amount of nickel in each tap or at various points in time. Drinking of only the first portion in the morning might influence nickel hand eczema.
— Nickel in Tap Water
Rivers
In addition to seawater, rivers contain approximately 0.0003 ppm of nickel.
—Lenntech
Phytoplankton
Phytoplankton contains 1-10 ppm nickel (dry mass), meaning when they aren’t in the water and are dry.
Benthic Algae
Benthic algae can be found both in freshwater and saltwater and may contain between 0.2 and 84 ppm nickel.
— Lenntech
Sea Animals
Lobsters contain 0.14-60 ppm nickel, mollusks (sea snail) 0.1-850 ppm, and fishes between 0.1 and 11 ppm (all values based on a dry mass).
—Lenntech
Chemical Reaction
Nickel occurs in water as Ni2+ (aq) which is a chemical reaction that may be either dissolved or complexed with inorganic ligands, so nickel may also be bound to particles.
- Lenntech
Heavy Metal Treatment
Nickel is directly emitted from various industries through discharge on surface waters. It is applied in alloys for treatment of heavy metal like nickel-cadmium batteries, as a catalyzer and as a pigment, which later pollutes surface water.
In the beginning, can you remember it would take 1.10-12.35 ppm for nickel sensitive people to get a severe reaction? Just to play devils advocate, I took it upon myself to calculate everything here to see whether it was enough to make a severe reaction. Also, this doesn’t include heavy metal treatment, chemical reaction, and tap water, so it might be higher. In the calculation, 1.54-1015 ppm would be the amount of nickel accumulation, which will give nickel allergy sufferers a reaction. But keep in mind, it is nearly impossible to have all these things all at once.
As I was writing this blog post, I already knew what was contaminating my water when it referred to nickel, but some of this things are so surprising. In a way we never really know how much nickel we ingest since water is our main source of existence. So a little disclaimer for all of you who don’t know, for nickel sensitive sufferers, it takes 1.10-12.35 ppm (parts per million) for a cutaneous reaction. So, keep this in mind when you are reading through this.
