Articles of Health

What do you think of Reverse Osmosis? Not much, probably, at least until somebody proposes you a reverse osmosis water filter for your home. At that time we would like to step in, for a friendly warning that possibly it would not be in your best interest to accept all that hype as crystal clear truth. It is proper to remind that among the different methods used for purifying water for drinking and personal consumption, reverse osmosis is mentioned as one of the available options. It is a separation process that uses pressure to force a solution through a semi permeable membrane with a very fine pore structure, whose function is to retain the contaminants on one side and to allow the purified solvent, in this case water, to pass to the other side. In fact, while it may be effective for some industrial processes that need  demineralized water, reverse osmosis is far from ideal for home water purification systems. Although there is an ongoing debate over the healthfulness of demineralized water as compared to filtered water that includes healthy minerals, it seems safe to argue that naturally balanced drinking water provides all the needed ingredients for human well-being and is therefore healthier. The size of the pores of the membranes used in reverse osmosis are such that permit removing contaminants based on their molecular size. Any synthetic chemicals like herbicides and pesticides molecularly smaller than water cannot be removed by reverse osmosis. Therefore, to be effective, any reverse osmosis system must be followed by a carbon filter and possibly by an ultra-violet lamp for disinfection (killing) of any microbes that might escape the membrane barrier. The portion of water enriched in contaminants (twice to three times the quantity of purified water obtained) has to be discarded at a non negligible expense. Given the present and future global concerns for sufficient availability of freshwater supply, this may quickly become an unacceptable waste. One thing is to return to the sea that portion of discarded water from a desalination onshore plant, another is to throw down the drain all the quantity of remaining water you pay for but is unsuitable for drinking (unless you collect it separately for toilet flushing, car washing and, within limits, for gardening). Don't forget that, being the process slow, you need a tank to collect the purified product until usage time. In addition to that, the substantial cost of energy used to pressurize the contaminated water and the necessary maintenance and replacement costs bring the estimates of such processing, per unit volume of treated water, to more than twice that needed for alternative filtering systems. That is in brief why it is recommended to be ware of superlative praises for reverse osmosis water filters for home installation and to consider more suitable alternatives instead. You can read also about buy cheap zocor