How does water softening works?

Google tensides. You could find somthing. Not an easy subject. Good luck. Ky.

The salt flushes out the impurities in the elements (little plastic like beads) in the softener and leaves behind a saline ion that does an ion exchange with the un-softened water.

Water softening means removing divalent ions like Ca++ and Mg++ using a cation resin which is in Na+ form. The explanation given by Devader100 is perfect.

There also is another process called demineralization. It uses Cation Resins in H+ form and Anion Resins in OH- form.

H+ and OH - ions are replaced with negative and positive ions respectively producing deionised water.

I think I'm more familiar with you example.

About 14 years ago I tried to sell water softeners through United Water. The units were called the Hydroquad Ultramicron Filtration Systems that also included a reverse osmosis unit mounted under the sink.

is cation an extra electron in the outer orbit of the molecule/compound measured? is anion one not enough?

how many atoms are a Ca, Fe and Mg molecules? or are they present as some chloride (cl) compound, and if so, what's their desire? (+ or -) ?

how does the ion exchange take place? is the resin seeking/or rejecting an extra electron(s) to obtain the inert molecule? What is the resin in softeners and it's "desire" (+ or -)?

what is the balance of the raw water present maganese and calcium molecule? or is it present as a compound of...?

Is sodium (NaCl) (actually everyone uses KCl now) then present in the output water?

if so, how is that filtered out? ~10 to 20u filter?

How do I remove TDS (total disolved solids ~2000ppm) from water?

is cation an extra electron in the outer orbit of the molecule/compound measured? is anion one not enough?

how many atoms are a Ca, Fe and Mg molecules? or are they present as some chloride (cl) compound, and if so, what's their desire? (+ or -) ?

how does the ion exchange take place? is the resin seeking/or rejecting an extra electron(s) to obtain the inert molecule? What is the resin in softeners and it's "desire" (+ or -)?

what is the balance of the raw water present maganese and calcium molecule? or is it present as a compound of...?

Is sodium (NaCl) (actually everyone uses KCl now) then present in the output water?

if so, how is that filtered out? ~10 to 20u filter?

How do I remove TDS (total disolved solids ~2000ppm) from water?

I'm not a chemist, so I can't explain in full detail just how the ion exchange process works, but you are right, after softening, the magnesium bicarbonate and calcium bicarbonate are replaced by NaCl & KCl. These are later removed by reverse osmosis. Any remaining ions left after RO are removed by deionization.

"How do I remove TDS (total disolved solids ~2000ppm) from water?"

A few ways: reverse osmosis, distillation, electrodialysis.

The divalent salts found in water, being the calcium and magnesium sulphates and carbonates, are inversely soluble, and tend to precipitate out onto heating and membrane surfaces as their concentration increases and/or the temperature increases. The monovalent ions sodium and chloride do not do this. So as a first stage of treatment in many facilities, an early process step is to swap the calcium and magnesium ions for sodium, and sulphate and carbonate for chloride, producing a water that will not leave precipitates, i.e. "soft water". This 'softening' is the facility that ion exchange resins provide.

As the resins remain in service they take up more divalent ions they release their monovalent ones, so at some point the resins can be said to be exhausted. Regeneration is simply the process of flushing out the captured divalent ions with strong concentrations of the monovalent ions so that the resins can be brought back into service and continue to carry out the softening process. Regeneration is usually achieved by switching to a standby stream and regenerating the exhausted resin bed off-line. For this reason, many ion-echange facilities have multiple vessels so that at intervals a standby stream can be brought into service and the exhausted steam taken off-line in order to regenerate its contents.

Ion-exchange softening will have little effect on heavy metals, and other processes will be needed upstream to remove these if they are present in any significant concentrations.

It's my understanding that water that has been softened becomes a good solvent of its own right. That mineral deposits that have accumulated in places like your hot water heater will eventually be removed by the soft water.

I used to clean hard water buildup on glass, inside toilets and on faucets using just plain soft water.