What are the differences between osmosis and reverse osmosis?
2 answers
Osmosis is a natural phenomenon. It is a phenomenon that occurs when two liquids containing different concentrations of dissolved solids are separated by a semi-permeable membrane, allowing only the liquids to pass. Thus, the liquid with the smallest proportion of dissolved solids will cross the membrane, to go to the liquid which contains the greatest concentration. The water level should therefore rise on one side, and it is this height differential that is called osmotic pressure.
On the other hand, reverse osmosis is not a natural phenomenon. This is a technique used for water treatment. A pressure stronger than the osmotic pressure is applied, which triggers the opposite phenomenon to osmosis. Liquids pass through the membrane, and dissolved solids remain in their original location.
This solution can be used for the purpose of purifying water, through a reverse osmosis membrane. Water with a high concentration of dissolved salts (brackish) must enter the soft solution, which has a low concentration of dissolved salts. Thanks to a pressure higher than the osmotic pressure, the water is purified, and the brine becomes more concentrated and evacuated.
Although these principles are opposed, it is interesting to understand how they work in order to apply them in different environments, the reverse osmosis technique being a water treatment solution with proven effectiveness and the most successful of all. its broad spectrum of management of the pollutants present in the water.
Osmosis is the phenomenon of diffusion of matter , characterized by the passage of solvent molecules from one solution to another through the semi-permeable membrane which separates these two solutions whose solute concentrations are different; the overall solvent transfer then takes place from the least concentrated solution ( hypotonic medium) to the most concentrated solution ( hypertonic medium) until equilibrium ( isotonic medium). This phenomenon only concerns the exchanges between two liquid solutions which have different concentrations of solutes , separated by a semi-permeable wall.
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