Reverse Osmosis Water Filter System
Reverse Osmosis Water Filter System 101
A reverse osmosis water filter system is very similar to other filtration methods. However, this system uses pressure and the osmosis process in order to provide a mineral and pathogen free water. Most of us are familiar with the term osmosis from high school science classes but aren’t quite sure how this system works. Simply put, osmosis means that water with low contamination levels will flow to areas of high contamination in order to balance out pressure. If you have “clean” water on one side of a porous membrane and “dirty” on the other, the clean water will go over to the dirty side.
Obviously, this is not the effect that we want with our drinking water! A reverse osmosis water filter system turns around this process using pressure. These systems have at least two tanks, the first one being where the contaminated water enters. A very fine porous membrane separates the two sides. The fine water particles can pass through the membrane but minerals and bacteria are left on the other side. The result of a functioning reverse osmosis water filter system is water that is equal in purity to distilled water.
The benefits of a reverse osmosis water filter system is that it effectively removes all minerals, bacteria and pathogens better than most common filtration systems. The downside of this is that some chemicals like pesticides may still pass through. The biggest downside of reverse osmosis water filter systems is that chlorine may also pass through and this can cause damage to the filtration membrane. For this reason, an additional filtration system is often used with reverse osmosis. Because reverse osmosis filters produce such a mineral and bacteria-free water, they are ideal for areas where there is a high amount of water-born diseases and for people with sensitive immune systems.