Reverse osmosis and water purification during pregnancy Posted: 05-21-08 08:49am
Pregnancy is a time in a woman's life when
she needs to be extra concerned about the
food she is eating, as well as what she is
drinking. Drinking water often contains
harmful contaminants such as lead,
arsenic, radium and others. It is
important during the baby's development to
be drinking purified water. Water
Purification by Reverse Osmosis is a great
way to make sure you are drinking clean,
pure water.
Reverse osmosis water purification removes
99% of pharmaceuticals and dissolved
contaminates. The Process of reverse
osmosis starts with the water from a
liquid with a high concentration of
dissolved solids being pushed to flow
through a semi-permeable membrane, the
heart of the reverse osmosis system, to
the low concentration side where this
water can be collected. The process is
achieved by applying pressure on the
liquid to overcome the natural osmotic
pressure forces on a membrane.
The semi-permeable membranes used in the
process are engineered to only allow the
passage of the water molecule. The
semi-permeable membrane allows water
molecules to pass through while blocking
larger molecules. Water molecules
penetrate the thin layer of the membrane
and diffuse through it molecule by
molecule. Dissolved salt ions do not
diffuse through this layer because the
solubility of the salt ions is much less
than that of the water. Thus, the water
moves through more readily and separation
from the other molecules present occurs.
The driving force is furnished by both the
pressure and the concentration
differentials across the membrane. For
water, the pressure effect is the most
important, and for dissolved mineral ions
the concentration difference is most
important. Therefore, increases in
pressure increase the product water flow
without a corresponding decrease in the
quality of the product water.
In nature, osmosis pushes a liquid with a
low concentration of dissolved solids
(usually water) through a semi-permeable
membrane into a solution of higher
dissolved solids concentration. It
continues until the osmotic pressures of
both liquids have equalized. The natural
osmosis process, therefore, works great in
pushing the more concentrated tree sap up
to the tallest leaves of an oak tree, but
it uses up pure water to do it. This
process is great in theory, but it does
not work properly in liquid purification
process for drinking water. For this to
work for drinking water, the osmosis
process needs to be reversed to produce
high quality results. Now there are many
options for products that offer reverse
osmosis filtration. These products
produce high quality water for safe
consumption and better taste.
