Tag Archives: reverse osmosis plant

Let’s face it, asking the salesman, “What does reverse osmosis do?” is going to make us look dumb.

So let me answer the question here, really quickly, but with enough detail to let you walk into the water purifier store with confidence.

What is reverse osmosis? Let’s look at it from something we do know; what is ordinary osmosis? I call it “true osmosis”. What does it do? Well, it is one of nature’s miracles and without it we would not have life on earth as it is.

Have you admired a flower recently? That was only possible because the flower is able to draw water up out of the ground by osmosis. It has no physical pump to do that, obviously. Instead it uses a process where a solution of liquid will move right through a barrier because on the other side there is another, more concentrated liquid solution. That is osmosis. It’s that simple, and that powerful.

It is in this way that a garden plant, without any moving parts, can draw up water to its flowers and a giant redwood can water its top-most leaves. And the same amazing thing goes on in your body, right down at the level of your cells, because the wall of a cell is not completely solid and liquids and solutions pass in and out of them, drawn and pushed by the differences in concentration in the liquids at each side of the cell wall.

But there is something interesting in the science of osmosis. It can be reversed. A liquid, moves around by the force of true osmosis moves from low concentrations to higher concentrations. But it can be made to go the other way. So salt water, for example, can be made clean and salt-free by reversing osmosis.

So, what does reverse osmosis do? Let’s find out by taking the sea water in a giant Middle Eastern desalination plant in one of the Gulf States. If you bring this salty water into a container that has special wall down one end which will let molecules move through by osmosis, and apply pressure to the water — 60 times the pressure that was on the same water just outside the container — water will leave the container but the salt will stay inside. In other words, you will end up with fresh water. What is reverse osmosis but a miracle!

This wonderful reverse osmosis is used extensively in desalination plants. Both in the big ones in the Gulf and the small ones onboard submarines. They are also popular with many municipal water authorities in our cities and towns. And some manufacturers make units small enough to actually go in a home. What does reverse osmosis do is really quite remarkable.

Personally, though, I would not use a reverse osmosis unit in my home. The reason is simple. Although they successfully take out dirt, mud and some chemicals, they also remove the natural minerals water carries. Things like calcium and magnesium.

Our bodies need these minerals to function and stay healthy, as your doctor will assure next time you visit. And the natural way to get these essential minerals is from the water we drink, because that water comes from deep below the earth where it has dissolved minute traces of them from the rocks, and carries them into the drinking water catchments our local authorities pipe water from. Take out the minerals and you invite in ill health. So, my kids and I would never use one.

By Len McGrane

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