What is Reverse Osmosis?

Reverse osmosis is an important concept to understand when it comes to water purification. But it can definitely get a little confusing. Here’s a beginner’s guide to help you understand what’s happening to purify your home’s water.

Osmosis vs.
Reverse Osmosis

You probably already remember the basics of osmosis from school: water passing through a semi-permeable membrane on its way from one less concentrated solution to a more concentrated one, resulting in two more equally concentrated solutions. As you probably guessed, reverse osmosis is the opposite. The water starts out with a high concentration of contaminants. After passing through a semipermeable membrane, the water ends up with a low concentration of contaminants.

Reverse osmosis helps remove:

A key difference between the two processes is that while osmosis occurs naturally, energy must be applied to trigger the reverse osmosis process. The water is forced through the membrane using a high-pressure pump.

The Filters of Reverse Osmosis

Of course, this is just a simple overview. Reverse osmosis actually includes four different stages of water filtration to maximize the purity of the water. The first filter is the sediment filter, which eliminates the largest particles such as dirt and sand. The water then moves on to the pre-carbon block, which ensures that nothing larger than a particle of flour makes it to the third filtration stage. This filter also attracts and bonds with positively charged ions. This stops chemical compounds like chlorine from entering the next stage.

Anything that’s heavier than water, like fluoride or dissolved minerals, gets filtered out in the third filter which is the reverse osmosis membrane. Lastly, the water gets polished in the fourth and final stage of water filtration. All the contaminants are disposed of in the reject stream.

Get a Free In-Home Consultation
and Water Test from Supreme Filtration

If your water could use some reverse osmosis, make sure you get in touch with Supreme Filtration. We are the national water treatment experts and will provide you with the treatment solution that gives you confidence in the safety of your water. We will even provide you with a free in-home consultation and water test!