Principal function of water is to regulate steady temperatures in our bodies and in our environment. Excluding ammonia, water has the greatest ability of any substance to absorb or give up heat without becoming much warmer or colder itself. This tremendous heat capacity of water enables our body temperature to remain constant at about 98.6o F and keeps the earth’s climate from getting too hot or cold.

Every glass of water you drink contains molecules of water used countless times before. Water is never used up: almost every drop we use is eventually evaporated by the sun. This action cleans the water since the evaporation process effectively separates H2O from contaminants that are mixed in with it. It then falls back to earth as rain.

However, even with all of the importance water holds in our lives, many of us know very little about the water we use each day. We drink tap water, enjoying the convenience and cost-effectiveness of this practice, yet, we fail to recognize the serious threat this water may pose to our health. Those who are willing to forgo the convenience of tap water and indulge in bottled water often know very little about the contents of that water and simply trust that bottled water must be better than tap water. Even conscientious consumers, who wisely attempt to treat their own water in an effort to ensure the healthfulness of that water, often know little about the many home water treatment options now available.

• Sunlight and stream aeration work to naturally disinfect and oxidize contamination in water. Ultraviolet light, chlorination, ozonation, and permanganate equipment serve these same functions in home and business water treatment.
• Filtration is the treatment process that water naturally goes through when moving into the ground and flowing to wells, springs, or other ground water discharge points. As water seeps through the ground, much of its suspended matter, color, and bacterial content are filtered out. Today’s water filtration technology has selected specific filter media along with carefully engineered designs and flow rates to refine and enhance this natural solids/liquids separation process.
• Osmotic membrane filtration is the phenomenon utilized by plant and animal tissue in regulating the passage of materials in and out of living cell. The cell wall is a semipermeable membrane that will reject some substances, allow others to permeate, and encourage or discourage the concentration differential of certain dissolved substances on each side of the membrane. These are all terms and principles that are recognized and used in perfecting membrane water treatment processes such as reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration.
• Reverse Osmosis is a separation process that uses pressure to force a solvent through a membrane that retains the solute on one side and allows the pure solvent to pass to the other side. More formally, it is the process of forcing a solvent from a region of high solute concentration through a membrane to a region of low solute concentration by applying a pressure in excess of the osmotic pressure. The membrane here is semipermeable, meaning it allows the passage of solvent but not of solute. This process is best known for its use in desalination (removing the salt from sea water to get fresh water).
• Treatment for a wide variety of health and aesthetic contaminants that cause unpleasant taste, color, odour problems like a salty or soda taste caused by chlorides or sulfates is possible through reverse osmosis. RO can also be effective for treating health contaminants like arsenic, asbestos, atrazine (herbicides/ pesticides), fluoride, lead, mercury, nitrate and radium. RO equipment is also capable of treating for biological contaminants like cryptosporidium.
• Conclusion for Reverse Osmosis, is a relatively new but very effective, application of an established scientific process. Whether it is used to meet the needs of a family or the needs of an industrial operation requiring thousands of gallons per day, it can be a cost effective way to provide the required quantity of highly treated water. With continual advances in system and membrane design that boost efficiency and reliability, RO can be expected to play a major role in water treatment for years to come.