Is Reverse Osmosis Water Deionized?
Deionization and reverse osmosis are two effective methods of purifying water. They both remove contaminants, harmful minerals, and particles from water. Depending on the system’s mechanism applied, along with filtration stages involved, both of these systems remove a wide range of particles.
These include silt, sand, arsenic, copper, iron, salt, and calcium. These different particles vary in size, and are extracted at each stage. To determine whether reverse osmosis water is deionized, you should understand both processes.
What is Deionized Water?
Deionized water is pure water that is free from any mineral ions and salts. These mineral ions may include sodium, calcium, copper, iron, and bromide. To create deionized water, you must take conventional water and expose it to electrically charged resins. These resins attract and bind to different salt particles in the water.
By binding to the mineral salts, the deionization process helps to purify the water. This is because most of the impure and harmful particles inside the water are mineral salts. Even though deionized water is pure from all these salts, the water still contains numerous bacteria and viruses. Since bacteria and viruses have no charge, they do not attract to the electrified resin.
Even though this water may not be safe for consumption, it still has many applications. Most of its uses are industrial or scientific. People use deionized water in microbiology experiments extensively as a medium. Car manufacturers use this water to fill up lead-acid batteries because mineral ions can decrease the battery’s lifespan.
You can also find deionized water being used inside steam irons that you use for clothing. This makes for a more effective and safe ironing of clothes as it eradicates any chances of mineral residue on the clothes. Additionally, this type of water is also a medium or additive for many pharmaceutical or cosmetic companies. Overall, many industries and professionals desire this water’s low chemical reactivity.
What is Reverse Osmosis?
Reverse Osmosis is similar to a water filtration process, which uses pressure. The process involves pressuring a concentrated water solution with salts and minerals to pass through a semi-permeable membrane. Once the water passes through, it separates from the salt compounds, giving you salt-free water.
The reverse osmosis process is power not as simple. There are many steps involved in the process, which are very thorough and help remove both, the particulate salts, along with germicidal threats from the water.
Is Reverse Osmosis Water Deionized?
Since reverse osmosis water goes through an extensive filtration and cleaning process, the final product is free from all harmful contaminants. Thus, you can safely consume this water without any threats pertaining to harmful salts, minerals, bacteria, or viruses. In other words, it is fair to say that reverse osmosis water creates the same and even better quality of water as deionizing process.
The major difference between reverse osmosis and deionized water is the method. Both the process helps in removing the salts, minerals and contaminants. One method, however, uses a semi-permeable membrane to make this possible. In contrast, the other method uses an ion exchange technique to bind to the minerals and get rid of them.
Final Words
Overall, both the techniques are useful and have many applications in different industries. Both can help purify impure water. However, both have different features, advantages, and setbacks. You can use both the techniques together as well and crease reverse osmosis water that is also deionized.