Get To Know More About Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration

When it comes to choose the most sought after water filtration technology, reverse osmosis emerges out as one of the most effective and reliable solutions available today. It is employed to confiscate a number of pollutants and contaminants from water by passing high pressure water through a semi-permeable membrane.

What is Reverse Osmosis?

Commonly referred as RO, Reverse Osmosis refers to a process that allows individuals to demineralize or deionize water by pushing it under high pressure through a semi-permeable membrane called Reverse Osmosis Membrane.

Osmosis refers to a naturally stirring portent and one of the most crucial processes in nature. It is a process where a weaker saline solution will move towards a strong saline solution. Examples of osmosis are when plant roots absorb water from the soil and our kidneys absorb water from the blood.

A semi-permeable membrane is actually a membrane that enables some atoms or molecules to pass but not others. An easy instance is a screen door. It permits air molecules to pass through but not pests or anything larger than the holes in the screen door. Another sample is Gore-tex clothing fabric that encompasses a very thin plastic film into which billions of small pores have been cut. The pores are spacious enough to let water vapor through, but small enough to avert liquid water from passing.

How RO works?

Reverse Osmosis works by employing a high pressure pump to intensify the pressure on the salt portion of the RO and push the water across the semi-permeable RO membrane, resulting into almost all (around 95% to 99%) of dissolved salts behind in the discard stream. The amount of pressure needed depends on the salt concentration of the feed water. The more concentrated the feed water, the more pressure will be needed to overawe the osmotic pressure.

The desalinated water that is demineralized or deionized, is known as permeate (or product) water. The water stream that transports the concentrated contaminants that did not pass through the RO membrane is known the reject (or concentrate) stream.

As the feed water passes through the RO membrane under pressure (enough pressure to overcome osmotic pressure) the water molecules pass through the semi-permeable membrane and the salts and other contaminants are not permitted to pass and are released through the reject stream (also known as the concentrate or brine stream), which goes to drain or can be fed back into the feed water supply in some cases to be recycled through the RO system to preserve water. The water that makes it through the RO membrane is known as permeate or product water and generally has around 95% to 99% of the dissolved salts eliminated from it.