What is Reverse Osmosis?

Reverse osmosis is a technology that is used to remove a large majority of contaminants from water by pushing the water under pressure through a semi-permeable membrane. Reverse osmosis is often used to partially clean-up tap water before any other purification technology is used. An Reverse osmosis unit wastes a large portion of the water that runs through its system. It generally wastes two to three gallons of water for every gallon of purified water it produces. Reverse osmosis is also an incredibly slow process when compared to other water treatment alternatives. This makes it unpractical for applications with flow rates above 1 GPM. In larger manufacturing applications on demand reverse osmosis units are put before a deionizer to lower the TDS since they do not remove it all or produce laboratory grade water. On demand reverse osmosis units can also be very pricey compared to small portable deionizers.