Reverse osmosis is one of the most common and effective means of purifying water for drinking and many high purity water today. In fact, Reverse Osmosis is commonly used by most major bottled water manufacturing companies to purify water from their sources before bottling. A reverse osmosis system will remove the majority of common impurities, making water look and taste Pure and Fresh.
To understand Reverse Osmosis we must first understand Osmosis. During natural osmosis, water flows from a less concentrated solution through semipermeable membrane to a more concentrated saline solution until concentrations on both sides of the membrane are equal. A reverse osmosis membrane has a thin microporous surface that rejects impurities, but allows water to pass through. The membrane rejects bacteria, pyrogens, and 85%-99% of inorganic solids. Polyvalent ions are rejected easier than monovalent ions. Organic solids with molecular weight greater than 300 are rejected by the membrane. Reverse osmosis is a percent rejection technology. The purity of reverse osmosis product water is much higher than the purity of the feed water.
