Benefits of Reverse Osmosis in the 21st Century

Benefits of Reverse Osmosis in the 21^st Century

Reverse osmosis is one of the processes that makes desalination (or removing salt from seawater) possible in the 21^st century. Beyond that, reverse osmosis is used for recycling, wastewater treatment, and can even produce energy.

Water issues have become an extremely pressing global threat. With climate change come unprecedented environmental impacts: torrential flooding in some areas, droughts in others, rising and falling sea levels. Add to that the threat of overpopulation —
and the demand and pollution a swelling population brings — and water becomes one of the paramount environmental issues to watch for in the next generation.

Water treatment plants and systems are now adapting reverse osmosis to address some of these concerns. In Perth, Australia (notably dry and arid, yet surrounded by sea), nearly 17 percent of the area’s drinking water is desalinated sea water that comes from
a reverse osmosis plant. Worldwide, there are now over 13,000 desalination plants in the world, according to the International Desalination Association.

Reverse osmosis is also one of the few ways that we can take certain minerals or chemicals out of a water supply. Some water sources have extremely high levels of natural fluoridation, which can lead to enamel fluorosis (mottled teeth), or the much more
severe skeletal fluorosis (an actual bending of a person’s bones or skeletal frame). Reverse osmosis can filter out fluoride, or other impurities, on a large scale in a way that a charcoal based filter (like the one most commonly found in homes) can’t.

It’s also used for recycling purposes; the chemicals used to treat metals for recycling creates harmful wastewater, and reverse osmosis can pull clean water out for better chemical disposal. But even more fun than recycling? They’ve nicknamed it "toilet
to tap" for a reason, and although it might give you pause, it’s a promising ways for developing nations to produce drinkable water.

But reverse osmosis is used in other industries as well; maple syrup, in fact, is produced using osmosis to separate the sugary concentrate from water in sap. The dairy industry uses reverse osmosis filtration to concentrate whey and milk, and the wine industry
has begun using it to filter out undesirable elements like some acids, smoke, or to control alcohol content. Reverse osmosis is used to create pure ethanol, free from contaminants.

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Posted by M. Omer Iqbal bhatti on Nov 2 2011. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry