What is a R/O reverse osmosis

Reverse Osmosis, commonly referred to as RO, is a process where you demineralize or deionize water by pushing it under pressure through a semi-permeable Reverse Osmosis Membrane.

A semi-permeable membrane is a membrane that will allow some atoms or molecules to pass but not others. A simple example is a screen door.

 It allows air molecules to pass through but not pests or anything larger than the holes in the screen door

How it works

Reverse Osmosis works by using a high pressure pump to increase the pressure on the salt side of the RO and force the water across the semi-permeable RO membrane,

leaving almost all (around 95% to 99%) of dissolved salts behind in the reject stream. The amount of pressure required depends on the salt concentration of the feed water.

The more concentrated the feed water, the more pressure is required to overcome the osmotic pressure.

Reverse Osmosis is capable of removing up to 99%+ of the dissolved salts (ions), particles, colloids, organics, bacteria and pyrogens from the feed water (although an RO system should not be relied upon to remove 100% of bacteria and viruses).

 An RO membrane rejects contaminants based on their size and charge. Any contaminant that has a molecular weight greater than 200 is likely rejected by a properly running RO system.