What is Reverse Osmosis?
Date: March 28, 2014
ARTICLES
WHAT IS REVERSE OSMOSIS?
MAR 27, 2014
Water filtration is important if you want really clean and refreshing water to drink in your home. Although you might think your water is fine, having a filtration system helps to keep the water cleaner so that you and your family are ingesting fewer contaminants. One way to do this is by using reverse osmosis. You might remember osmosis from the science classes you took in school. This particular water filtration method works like osmosis, just backwards.
Understand Osmosis
Osmosis occurs when a liquid like water is separated by a semi-permeable (meaning semi-porous) membrane and one side has more solute than the other. Both sides of the membrane wish to be equal, so the low solute side moves through the membrane to the high solute in order to try to establish equilibrium. This is done naturally, since both sides of the membrane desire balance. The flow tends to move only in one direction (low solute to high), so in order for the process to be reversed, a bit of pressure needs to be applied.
Getting It Backwards
When you put the process of osmosis backwards, you can more easily understand how a reverse osmosis water filter functions. This time, instead of trying to equalize by moving liquid (or water) from the low-solute side, liquid is pulled from the high-solute side using pressure. Instead of equalizing, however, the liquid pulled through the membrane serves to separate. This means that if you have something like saltwater, the salt and the water are separated by pulling the water through the semi-porous membrane, leaving the salt behind. What you end up with is clean water that is good for your body inside and out.
Reverse osmosis can be an effective way to filter contaminants out of water. The result is clean water that will leave you with soft skin when you use it for bathing and be refreshing and safe to drink. If you are looking for effective water filtration to soften some of your hard water, you might consider looking into a reverse osmosis system. Call (602) 870-6840 today to learn more about reverse osmosis water filters available at Donley Service Center.