Florida Hospital Transplant Institute, a Medical Group Practice located in Orlando, FL Skip to content Check Your Symptoms Find A Doctor Find Lowest Drug Prices
Reverse osmosis is one of the processes that makes desalination (or removing salt from seawater) possible. Beyond that, reverse osmosis is used for recycling, wastewater treatment, and can even produce energy.
However, you need to 'push' the water through the reverse osmosis membrane by applying pressure that is greater than the naturally occurring osmotic pressure in order to desalinate (demineralize or deionize) water in the process, allowing pure water through while holding back a majority of contaminants. Whereas Osmosis occurs naturally without energy required, to reverse the process of osmosis you need to apply energy to the more saline solution. A reverse osmosis membrane is a semi-permeable membrane that allows the passage of water molecules but not the majority of dissolved salts, organics, bacteria and pyrogens.