How Does Reverse Osmosis Work? An Expert Explains in Easy-to-Understand Layman's Language

To find out how does reverse osmosis work just look at natural osmosis ... what I call 'true' osmosis.

osmosis jones

It is a process that takes place when a liquid is drawn through a 'solid' wall-like membrane because there is another fluid on the other side that has a higher concentration in its solution.

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Now, as you will know, some barriers are so solid they are impermeable. Nothing can pass through them except at the atomic level. But there other so-called 'solid' barriers or walls that are actually drilled with passageways only visible under a microscope. Liquid solutions can pour through those passageways and fill up containers on the other side.

This is what osmosis is. And it happens every day at your work and home, although you will seldom see it.

For example, water rises up into plants by osmosis. Without this process, no plant could grow or survive. Even more importantly, osmosis keeps out bodies healthy and functioning. Right down at the level of our cells, chemicals react as they should and fluids are transported around the body by osmosis. Osmosis is a vital process for all living organisms, influencing the distribution of nutrients and the release of waste.

We use osmosis in industry and daily life.

When you open a can that has 'preserved' fish in brine, you have an example of osmosis, because while the fish was sitting the brine osmosis slowly drew the salt in the brine into the flesh of the fish. And when the salt has permeated the fish bacteria can not settle and make the meat bad. For thousands of years people have used osmosis to preserve meat in this way. In modern times, a kidney dialysis machine works by osmosis. It draws out waste from a patient's blood but not the healthy components like the red cells.

Now here is a question. If solutions can be irresistibly drawn one way through a membrane barrier can they be pulled the other way? Yes. They can. We can reverse osmosis. And now we come to answering our question, how does reverse osmosis work?

Pressure will reverse osmosis.

Set up a barrel of sea water with steel sides but for the bottom as a semi permeable membrane. Place a container underneath to catch whatever trickles through. Now put some pressure on the water -- about 60 times as much pressure as it would have just standing with the lid off at sea level. The salt water will move through the semi permeable membrane and fill the second container. But the salt molecules will not. They will stay in the barrel. The second chamber will fill up with fresh water!

In the Middle East huge desalination stations produce fresh water this way. So do submarines. Many city water authorities clean their water with these plants, and they have even been made small enough to fit in a normal suburban home so that, through the whole house, reverse osmosis water can come from every tap.

These reverse osmosis purifiers can take effluent, or grey or brackish water and turn out water that is certainly good enough for farming and washing. Some of these plants will even produce water that's almost good enough to be called pure drinking water.

But while it might be OK to drink reverse osmosis water for a short tour of duty on a submarine, it would not be healthy to depend on it long-term in your home. This is because reverse osmosis stops not only particles of feces and other unwanted, dangerous organic matter, and certain chemical compounds, it also stops natural minerals.

In other words, you end up drinking water that is sterile!

This is seriously unhealthy. Because actually you and your children must have calcium (for bones and teeth), a range of the sulfate minerals, magnesium, iron and other minerals critical to life. They have been dissolved deep down in the earth's crust and moved up in a perfect cycle into our water supplies where we normally get them by drinking quality water.

Without the constant replenishment of these health-giving, natural minerals we fall ill. So if you want healthy water for your whole house reverse osmosis is a second best option. There are other excellent filters that will clean water without removing the natural minerals your children need to take in.

Now you have the answer to 'how does reverse osmosis work', I'd like to recommend you visit my web site and get some more information on purifying drinking water and other filter options that do a better job than reverse osmosis.

How Does Reverse Osmosis Work? An Expert Explains in Easy-to-Understand Layman's Language

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