What is Reverse Osmosis and How Does it Work?

In this article we are going to see about what is Reverse Osmosis and How Does it Work? 

You have probably heard bottled water brands like Aquafina, Dasani, and Nestle Pure Life boast that their bottled water is filtered with reverse osmosis – but do you know what reverse osmosis is or how it works? Probably not. It’s because they don’t talk about it… because they think it’s complicated. But now I am revealing it, WATER+ reverse osmosis filtration technology works so that you know exactly what’s in your water (and what’s not!) and how it will taste when you take a sip. 

What is Reverse Osmosis? 

Reverse osmosis is a water purification process that uses a semi-permeable membrane (synthetic lining) to filter out unwanted molecules and large particles such as contaminants and sediments like chlorine, salt, and dirt from drinking water. In addition to removing contaminants and sediments, reverse osmosis can also remove microorganisms – which you certainly do not want to drink. It gets water clean down to a molecular level, leaving only pure H2O behind.

How Does Reverse Osmosis Work? 

Before we go into the details of how reverse osmosis works, we should start by explaining how osmosis works. As you may remember from your high school chemistry class, osmosis is the process by which water passes through a semi-permeable membrane from a less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one. In other words, the pure water passes through the filter to the contaminated water in order to equalize the concentrations – which is not what we want our drinking water to do. This movement generates osmotic pressure.

In reverse osmosis, an applied pressure is used to overcome the osmotic pressure and push the water from high concentration of contaminants to low concentration of contaminants. This means it’s being forced in reverse and the contaminated water is trying to move into the pure water, but because it must pass through a filter first, the contaminants get trapped and only the pure water passes through; resulting in the cleanest possible drinking water – which is exactly what we want! 

Reverse osmosis typically involves four stages of filtration: a sediment filter, pre-carbon block, reverse osmosis membrane, and post-carbon filter. The sediment filter removes the largest particles, like dirt, sand, and rust to prevent clogging of the subsequent filters. The pre-carbon filter uses activated carbon to prevent anything larger than a spec of flour from passing through as well as attracting and bonding with positively charged ions to prevent chemical compounds, like chlorine and chloramines, from passing through to the third filter. The reverse osmosis membrane then removes molecules heavier than water, such as sodium, high levels of lead, dissolved minerals, and fluoride. Finally, the post-carbon filter polishes the water.

Why is Reverse Osmosis Beneficial?

 Reverse osmosis differs from carbon filtration in that it can rid the water of up to 99.9% of all contaminants and sediments, or particles as small as .001 micron, whereas carbon filtration can only remove particles as small as 1 micron. Your local tap water could be award-worthy clean when it leaves the municipal plant but as it travels miles from the plant to your glass it could pick up a host of contaminants or it may have a naturally high number of total dissolved solids (TDS) in the water, so it would be best to get a reverse osmosis filtration system to safeguard that your water is contaminant-free.

Importance of Reverse Osmosis 

1. It is an important resource to create a sustainable source of drinking water. 

2. Reverse osmosis removes various undesirable substances from the water like iron, potassium, zinc and thus used in many large scale industries. By doing so, the pressure on local water sources gets reduced. 

3. Countries having water shortage due to infrastructure or any financial problem can have fresh and pure water and can decrease all types of diseases which are caused due to the impure water.

 Applications of Reverse Osmosis 

• Desalinating facilities to remove the salt from the ocean water. 
•  Helps in recycling processes of water which have been contaminated by chemicals which are used to preserve metal. 
•  Concentrating the food liquids such as fruit juices. 
•  Helps in the purification of water which contains a high level of fluoride. 
•  Help in power stations to remove the minerals from boiler water. 
• Used in wastewater industries and in many commercial industries to purify the water to get safe drinking water and can be reused in the reverse distillation technique. 

Reverse osmosis desalination process is very eco-friendly because of the recycling process. No chemicals are involved in this process thus gives a pure and safe water which can be used for drinking, cooking or in any other commercial use.