Reverse Osmosis

Desalination is the removal of dissolved salts from a solution. This can be achieved in a number of ways, with the most common forms falling into three main categories - membrane, chemical or thermal processes.

Reverse Osmosis (RO) is the finest level of filtration available. Reverse osmosis is a membrane separation process that acts as a molecular filter to remove 95% to 99% of dissolved salts and inorganic molecules, as well as organic molecules with a molecular weight of greater than 100. The reverse osmosis membrane also removes more than 98% of residual biological and colloidal matter from the feed water, resulting in a highly purified product stream.

Osmosis is the natural process which occurs when water spontaneously flows from a purer solution, through a semipermeable membrane into a more concentrated solution.

Reverse Osmosis is used for desalting sea water (SWRO) and brackish water (BWRO).

High Recovery

High recovery designs allow for 90% or more of the intake water to be utilised, minimising disposal of the RO concentrate. To achieve high water recovery pre-treament is designed to enhance membrane recovery, supported by two-pass RO process. Feed water temperature also effect the efficiency of membranes.