Reverse osmosis purifiers

Reverse osmosis

— the presence in the device (more precisely, the purifier — see "Product type") of a filtration system operating on the principle of reverse osmosis. Such a system can be combined with other types of filters.

Reverse osmosis is the most technologically advanced water purification method found in modern purifiers. Such a system is based on a membrane that provides filtration at the molecular level: it allows only water molecules to pass through, retaining all impurities. This makes it possible to purify water with extremely high efficiency — up to the desalination of salt water, not to mention the removal of bacteria and other larger contaminants.

On the other hand, it must be taken into account that reverse osmosis systems also have several disadvantages (in addition to such a natural moment as high cost). So, they are very sensitive to the presence of large mechanical impurities, so when using such a device, you need to make sure that the water reaching the membrane undergoes sufficient preliminary purification. Osmotic devices turn out to be extremely uneconomical in terms of water consumption: only about 40% of the incoming volume of water passes through the membrane, and the rest is sent to the sewer along with pollution. The process itself is rather slow and requires high pressure in the water supply, which is far from always achievable (however, manufacturers often compensate for low speed with a built-in storage tank, and a separate booster pump can be installed to provide pressure). So before buying a model with a reverse osmosis system, you should make sure that its advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

A peculiar alternative to this function is a capillary membrane — less efficient but faster and simpler. See the relevant paragraph for more details.