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For Reverse Osmosis Newbs
For most of us our last chemistry class was quite some time ago. So before buying a reverse osmosis water system for your home or business you might be asking yourself, “Reverse osmosis sounds great. But what is it?”.
To understand what reverse osmosis is we first have to understand what osmosis is. If we were to ask a chemist this question he/she might respond, “osmosis is a specific type of diffusion involving water.” That’s great but it leaves us asking yet another question. What is diffusion? Diffusion is the movement of molecules from an area of higher concentration (i.e. an area where there’s more of that particular substance, like water) to an area of lower concentration (to an area where there’s not as much of that particular substance).
Like we said earlier, osmosis is a specific type of diffusion involving water. So basically osmosis is the process by which water moves from an area of high concentration through a semipermeable membrane (i.e. through a barrier where some things can pass through, like water, and other things can’t, like salt molecules) to an area of lower concentration.
Like the name implies, in reverse osmosis this process is reversed. By applying pressure to the water in the area of lower concentration it is forced through the semipermeable membrane and into the area of higher concentration. And in this process the water is being filtered because, depending on what the membrane is made of, the membrane will filter out sodium, chlorine, calcium, sugar, bacteria, and other undesirable impurities.
Thus, reverse osmosis can be utilized for a variety of useful functions. It can be used to make fresh drinking water out of seawater (desalination), and it can be used to filter out impurities in tap water into fresh drinking water.
To understand what reverse osmosis is we first have to understand what osmosis is. If we were to ask a chemist this question he/she might respond, “osmosis is a specific type of diffusion involving water.” That’s great but it leaves us asking yet another question. What is diffusion? Diffusion is the movement of molecules from an area of higher concentration (i.e. an area where there’s more of that particular substance, like water) to an area of lower concentration (to an area where there’s not as much of that particular substance).
Like we said earlier, osmosis is a specific type of diffusion involving water. So basically osmosis is the process by which water moves from an area of high concentration through a semipermeable membrane (i.e. through a barrier where some things can pass through, like water, and other things can’t, like salt molecules) to an area of lower concentration.
Like the name implies, in reverse osmosis this process is reversed. By applying pressure to the water in the area of lower concentration it is forced through the semipermeable membrane and into the area of higher concentration. And in this process the water is being filtered because, depending on what the membrane is made of, the membrane will filter out sodium, chlorine, calcium, sugar, bacteria, and other undesirable impurities.
Thus, reverse osmosis can be utilized for a variety of useful functions. It can be used to make fresh drinking water out of seawater (desalination), and it can be used to filter out impurities in tap water into fresh drinking water.
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