I can see the value of an R/O plant that cycles the water back into the sea
or a life raft unit that spills the water back into the ocean, but a home
unit that just flushes valuable water down the drain is just plain
irresponsible.

In the future wars will be fought over water and home R/O units will be
illegal.

William Polowniak
1989 Vanagon GL
1988 Mercedes 300 SE

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Beierl" <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 9:54 AM
Subject: Re: distilled water & wbx reliabilty

> At 02:53 AM 2/18/2002, Andrew Grebneff wrote:
> >Reverse osmosis? Osmosis is osmosis; there's no such thing as reverse
> >osmosis! It's merely the transfer of elements in a solution across a
> >semipermeable membrane, moving from an area of higher concentration
> >to one of lower, until the two balance (reach equilibrium). Whichever
> >way the elements/chemicals move, it's just plain ol' osmosis. Smells
> >of the idea of "deceleration" which is actually acceleration.
>
> Reverse osmosis applies a brine to one side of a membrane, and uses high
> pressures to force water molecules through the membrane and out of the
> brine, obtaining drinkable water as output.  There are plants with 1000
> cubic meter/day output, and there are hand-powered liferaft devices that
> produce a pint an hour or some such.  I believe Israel was one of the
first
> places to use large-scale R-O plants.
>
> The feedwater-treatment plants (around 10 m^3/hour) from Idroconsult
> achieve < 0.1 ppm free chlorine, < 2000 ppm total dissolved solids, and
> recovery rates (ratio of output:input flows) of 75 or 90 per cent.  Looks
> like recovery rates run around 20-30% for "home" units, and 50-75-90% for
> industrial plants, and the units are tailored for both input and output
> purposes/characteristics -- solids removal, wastewater treatment,
> desalination, deionization of municipal water etc.
>
> Google on "reverse osmosis plants" will give plenty of grist if you're
> interested.
>
> david
>
> --
> David Beierl - Providence, RI
>   http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
> '84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
> '85 GL "Poor Relation"
>