Reverse Osmosis (RO)

The heart of a high-purity water system

When you require a constant supply of consistent high purity water, RO systems are a must. From labs to hospitals, manufacturing or process water, drinking water or brackish and desalination technologies, we have you covered.

Product highlights

Vast range of systems, sizes, features and options
Available to meet any high-purity requirement
Countless pretreatment configurations available for maximum long-term reliability
Often integrated with DI and other systems for ultra-high pure systems

How Reverse Osmosis Works

Reverse osmosis is a process that uses pressure to force raw (pretreated) feed water through a semi-permeable membrane. The membrane has extremely small pores that will allow the water molecules through (now called Permeate), but hold back contaminants such as particulate, metals, minerals, salts, bacteria, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, etc.

The "reject" material is carried away in a concentrated water stream (called the concentrate) and directed to waste. An RO system will always have a constant waste stream while it is producing clean permeate water. A portion of this concentrate stream can be recycled back to the feed side to reduce overall waste water volumes (at the expense of membrane life).

The clean water is generally stored in a pressurized or unpressurized vessel for possible pH control or disinfection as dictated by the application, and then sent on to its final usage.

The concentration of total dissolved solids (TDS) of your feed water along with other variables will determine how much pressure you need to push the water molecules through the membrane. Most standard RO systems will function up to a TDS of approx. 2,000 ppm. Brackish systems will operate up to 8,000 ppm and desalination systems can operate as high as 45,000 ppm.

There are many variables that go into the proper sizing of an RO system. These can include pretreatment, TDS and other feed water parameters, water pressure, duty cycles, feed water temperature and more. It is always best to contact our office to verify the right product selection for your application.

If your water source is a private supply, having a water test report will be critical to ensure proper equipment selection.

RO System Specifics

Reverse osmosis is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet in this industry. It is used across all industries to provide pure, clean water for your process, lab, health facility, drinking water, bottling application, irrigation, food service, manufacturing, aquaventure, printing presses, and any other industry you can think of.

Ultra-high purity water systems such as dialysis and other medical processes will utilize RO as the "heart" of the system, which is then followed by a Deionization (DI) polishing step and possibly Ultrafiltration or Ultraviolet for final disinfection (or both).

It is critical that RO systems are designed properly. There are a number of contaminants in feed water that must be treated properly before an RO system to ensure troublefree long-term performance of your RO system. We always recommend sending us a copy of your full water test report for a free consultation on requirements to design the proper setup.

RO systems are generally fed into a storage or buffer tank to meet peak demand, but run for longer periods of time to keep the tank topped up
Pretreatment for excess hardness, Iron and Manganese is critical for long-term performance
RO water will lower the pH of the feed water. pH adjustment can be performed after the RO system if required by the application

Always get a proper system analyis done to ensure the correct RO is chosen for your application, with the proper ancillary equipment
Membranes can be replaced or chemically cleaned as necessary to extend service life and minimize maintenance costs
Wide range of systems available to suit your needs
There are multiple system options available to best match the requirements of your application