It seems lately that a lot of questions are coming up like "how does reverse osmosis work, anyway". There are lots of companies out there selling whole house reverse osmosis systems. Unless you really understand the answer to how does reverse osmosis work, you could be wasting your time, your money and your water, if you buy into their company claims.
The basic function of whole house reverse osmosis is to de-mineralize ground water, far different from purifying it.
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How does reverse osmosis work to clean water? Water under high pressure is forced through a porous membrane. The size of the pores determines what particles are captured. The system may be used to filter out trash, dirt, mud, etc.
Whole house reverse osmosis is used in areas where water is "hard" and in areas where saline (salt) content is a problem. Industries, such as film processing, use water filtered by reverse osmosis to prevent spotting and other damage on negatives that would affect the quality of the print. If you have hard water, you should know that whole house reverse osmosis is not your only or your best option. If you have well water with a high salt or microbial content, you should compare the effectiveness of other filters, before you buy.
Whole house reverse osmosis systems are expensive. The lowest price that we found is ,000. They take up a lot of space, larger than the average closet, bigger than a water heater, furnace or washer dryer. Whole house reverse osmosis systems also waste more water than they "clean". Look at the product performance evaluations to see what things are filtered out and how much water the unit wastes. The average is around three gallons for every one gallon filtered through.
How does reverse osmosis work to remove chlorine and other chemicals? It doesn't. One of the reasons that treatment facilities add chlorine is to protect the membrane in their reverse osmosis system from rot an algae growth. Logically, if chlorine will disinfect the pores of the membrane, it must be able to pass through the pores of the membrane.
How does chlorine "clean" water? Most of us need a home filtration system because our water has been chemically treated with chlorine. Chlorine "disinfects" the water, except in the case of certain microscopic organisms, chlorine kills living things found in the water that can cause illness. At first, we thought it was safe to consume water with certain amounts of chlorine, but we have learned that it is bad for our digestive systems, on the short term, and could cause cancer, on the long term. Not to be repetitive, but whole house reverse osmosis does not remove chlorine.
If your goal is "softer" water, ion exchange is a better system because it balances mineral content, rather than removing all of them. Activated carbon filters remove chemicals and chlorine from the water. Micron filters remove tiny microscopic organisms that can survive chlorine. The latest technology is to use all three stages in one unit, to provide the cleanest, healthiest water ever.
Hopefully, this answers most of your questions about how does reverse osmosis work. The simple answer is inefficient, ineffective and expensive.
How Does Reverse Osmosis Work OSMOSIS
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