Guest Ahbrit Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Can someone explain why they create 4x waste? You can drink the waste (apparently) Put it on the garden etc etc Why not reroute the water back through for a second pass? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theron Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 I believe the reason we have the 4x waste is to continuously flush the particles out of the system. Otherwise they would clog up the filter. You could reroute the waste water back in the filter but you would need a pump to do that and you would need a way to get the waste out of the system somehow. I imagine this is a cheap way for us to filter our water. There are probably systems that have very little waste but would be more complicated or expensive. Anyway... that is my guess. Theron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impur Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 If you re-route the waste you will be using up the carbon/particle/RO membrane faster. The waste water has all the nasties. If you keep using that, it will just get worse and worse and seriously lower the life of your membrane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaidin Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Theron is right. The membrane of the RO unit only lets water pass because the "holes" in the membrane are only small enough to let the water through. If we dont flush the membrane continuously the membrane becomes clogged and useless. The waste water (or brine) has all the waste particles in the water that we dont want. You can drink the waste if you want to but it could have higher levels of harmful contaminants. You could use it for other things like doing your laundry or watering your grass or things like that. You can get recirculating units where the water is passed through a second membrane and then recycled back through but like theron said you have to use a pump to boost the pressure back up when you recirculate it and its not a true recirculation cuz you still have to flush the contaminants out, but you get closer and closer to a true 1:1 output on these units when they get very large and at higher pressures and such. They make industrial units with multiple membranes and recirculating pumps to try to accomplish this for industrial applications. hope that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.