How AQVO Shower Filter Works
What's actually in your shower water — and how AQVO filters it
In a hot shower, chlorine doesn't just stay in the water. Warm water lets free chlorine escape into the air more readily — it's why a hot shower smells of chlorine when a cold tap doesn't. The SF002 cartridge reduces it before it reaches you.
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The problem
Treated water keeps you safe — but it isn't built for your skin
Chlorine taste & smell
Mains water is chlorinated to keep it safe to drink. Warm water releases some of that chlorine into the air — the faint "pool" smell you notice in a hot shower.
Dry skin & hair
Chlorine is an oxidant, and many people find showering in chlorinated water leaves skin feeling tight and hair feeling coarse. That's a feel-based, customer-reported effect — we don't make dermatological claims.
Sediment & rust
Older pipes and ageing infrastructure — common in rentals and established suburbs — can carry fine sediment and rust particles you'd rather not rinse through your hair.
What's inside the cartridge
Two media, one job each
The SF002 cartridge is a measured blend. Most of it does the filtering; the rest is there for how the water feels.
Dechlorination media
Reduces up to 98% of free chlorine as water passes through (based on supplier testing) — the measurable job of the filter.
Mineral & tourmaline balls
Tourmaline, mineralised and far-infrared media. We market these as a water-feel blend — not as a health claim.
AQVO Australia / Water explained
Inside shower filtration
How particles are captured and free chlorine is chemically reduced.
Two different jobs
Incoming shower water
Dissolved disinfectant residual + any suspended particles present
↓1Physical capture
A physical barrier retains particles such as sand, rust flakes and sediment. Capture depends on particle size and the filter structure.
No verified micron rating available.
↓2Contact with media
Reactive surfaces and reducing agents act on dissolved free chlorine as water flows through.
↓Water continues to the shower
Media chemistry — general principles
KDF-55
Copper-zinc mediaRedox at the metal surface converts free chlorine to chloride ions. Zinc supplies electrons in this process.
Free chlorine → chloride
Calcium sulphite
Chemical reducing agentSulphite reacts with free chlorine and is oxidised to sulphate. The chlorine is reduced to chloride.
Sulphite → sulphate
Coconut activated carbon
Porous carbon mediaSurface reactions reduce free chlorine. Its pores can also adsorb certain organic compounds; this is a separate mechanism.
Surface reaction + adsorption
Vitamin C
Ascorbic acidAscorbic acid reacts with free chlorine to form chloride and oxidised vitamin C. Available dose and contact time matter.
Ascorbic acid → oxidised vitamin C
Where does the chlorine go?
HOCl + 2e− + H+ → Cl− + H2O
Simplified reduction half-reaction. Chloride stays dissolved in the water; it is chemically different from free chlorine.
And chloramines?
Chloramines are different from free chlorine. Their reduction depends on the media, contact time and water conditions. Free-chlorine performance figures do not apply to chloramines.
Other supplier-listed mineral media are not assigned a contaminant-removal role here. Media identities and actual cartridge layout require confirmation before publishing an exact cutaway.
Supplier description ≠ product-specific performance test
The honest bit
We tell you what the filter does — and what it doesn't.
Our filter is highly effective on free chlorine — up to 98% based on supplier testing; real-world results vary with water chemistry, temperature, flow rate and cartridge age. It's less effective on chloramine, and we don't make health claims for the mineral media. Straight answers, no overclaiming.
Specs
*Based on the supplier's data sheet for model SF002: rated flow 5–8 L/min, inlet 5–50 °C, 100–450 kPa, standard mains tap water. It's a supplier result, not an independent Australian laboratory test or NSF/ANSI 177 certification, and the sheet doesn't state the challenge chlorine concentration or the point in cartridge life at which 98% was measured. Real-world results vary with water chemistry, temperature, flow rate and cartridge age. Housing 64 mm × 152 mm, about 450 g.
Engineered by people who actually know water
Chartered process engineering, applied to the water you shower in every day.
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