Chemistry - Is pure water very corrosive?
Solution 1:
That quote had false statements all over it.
Type I ultra pure water (Milli-Q water, or others) are fairly common among all labs. They are not corrosive to stainless steel.
As @chipbuster said, purified water is never distributed through stainless steel partly because concern of contamination. Metal reacts not only with oxygen, but also many pollutants in the air. Overtime on metal surface will build up a layer that has all kind of compounds in them. When water flows through, ions get picked up.
However, the most major reason would be that glass is better in all respect. The reason glasswares are commonly used in the lab have little to do with pure water. Glasswares are relatively stable across wide range of pH and very hard to be oxidized or reduced. Plus, glasswares are cheap, extremely easy to manufacture, and transparent, so you can see through. You will really only need metal if extreme pressure or temperature is required.
As a matter of fact, it is also unwise to use glassware to distribute ultrapure water--you will get ion contaminations from glass as well. Purified water are actually almost always stored in plastic containers and distributed through plastic tubes.
Solution 2:
Water at very high temperatures and pressures is corrosive (in the sense that it will react with a lot of common materials), but generally speaking pure water is less corrosive than water with impurities. Some power plants use purified water in their cooling systems for this reason.
Solution 3:
If we define corrosivity as impurification of the water, ultrapure water eats nearly everything, including Pyrex. Plumbing is usually polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF, Kynar), polyperfluoroalkoxy (PFA), ethylene chlorotrifluoroethylene (ECTFE, Halar).
Stuff still grows in ultrapure water, slowly. Chip fabs' water systems must be hard-UV irradiated, ozonized, or otherwise disinfected plus ultrafiltered against bio-particulate generation.
The product tastes awful - bitter and flat.