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What Is RO Water System Is Right For You?
A reverse osmosis water filter, or RO water system, can be an effective filtration device. The process uses pressure to force water through a membrane that retains contaminants on one side of the filter and allows the treated water to pass through to the other side. This process is more widely known for removing salt from sea water to get fresh water, also called desalination. RO is also used to purify fresh water for medical and industrial processes. Let’s take a closer look at the stages of RO filtration to give you an idea of whether it is right for your home.
A sediment pre-filter is used to extract larger contaminants like dirt, sand, dust, grit and rust particles from the water when present. An optional secondary carbon pre-filter is used to extract most of the organic chemicals and chlorine; providing enhanced taste and reduction of odor while helping to protect the reverse osmosis membrane, which can be vulnerable to chlorine.
A RO membrane is normally made from a thin film composite. An optional carbon post-filter is used to capture any chemicals that are still present. This step also helps guard against any tainting which might occur within the device’s water storage tank. Another option, an ultraviolet light (UV-C), is incorporated into the process to disinfect the water of any organisms that may have escaped the reverse osmosis membrane.
A RO water system tends to remove important trace minerals while filtering, leaving the water tasteless and strangely flat. More important, however, is that natural water contains trace minerals, and dissolved trace minerals in drinking water are actually a valuable source of calcium, magnesium and other nutrients. There are other, less expensive types of systems that can do a great job of purifying water for drinking purposes, and yet still leave the trace minerals intact.
A reverse osmosis water treatment system must occasionally be sanitized with chlorine, a chemical that is highly undesirable and which in many cases is filtered out by other systems. Though chlorine is nearly universally used by city and municipal water systems, it has been shown to cause cancer. Using it to clean the filter that you will use to filter out such things seems to be counter intuitive.
You may be wondering what contaminants an RO water system actually removes. According to manufacturers of the RO water system, the following contaminates are removed at least partially from household water supplies. These are aluminum, bacteria, ammonium, potassium, boron, silica, nickel, nitrate, phosphate, silver, sodium and zinc, to name a few. There is no water filtering system that can guarantee one hundred percent removal of all contaminants.
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