 With the move to get away from bottled water, many people are turning to home purification systems to become greener and also to save money. Reverse osmosis systems are one of the most popular systems around. Originally developed for submarines to turn saltwater into freshwater, reverse osmosis is a filtration process that is often used for water. It works by using pressure to force water through a membrane, retaining the dissolved particles on one side and allowing the pure water to pass to the other side. Water purification systems with a reverse osmosis step, are commonly used for improving water for drinking and cooking. These systems typically include a number of interesting parts:
• a sediment filter to trap particles including rust and calcium carbonate
• optionally a second sediment filter with smaller pores
• a carbon filter to trap organic chemicals, and chlorine which will attack and degrade TFC reverse osmosis membranes
• a reverse osmosis (RO) filter which is a thin film composite membrane (TFM or TFC)
• sometimes a second carbon filter to capture those chemicals not removed by the RO membrane
• sometimes an ultra violet lamp for disinfecting any microbes that may escape filtering by the reverse osmosis membrane
Household reverse osmosis units use a lot of water because they have low back pressure. As a result, they recover only 5 to 15 percent of the water entering the system. The remainder is discharged as waste water. Because waste water carries with it the rejected contaminants, methods to re-cover this water are not practical for household systems. Waste water is typically connected to the house drains and will add to the load on the household septic system. An RO unit delivering 5 gallons of treated water per day may discharge 40 to 90 gallons of waste water per day to the septic system.
Typically distillation, which is capturing and condensing the steam from water, is nearly the same as water treated by reverse osmosis. It is less water wasted than reverse osmosis, but still not the most time efficient way to get water.
Before investing in a water filtration system, have your water tested by a professional. After that, discuss all the available options for water treatment that are eco-friendly. Making the switch from bottled water is good if a wise replacement is chosen.
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