We are living in a world where having a RO purifier at home is not a luxury at all. This is a must have home appliance because of the health aspect concerned with it. Everybody considers water purified through a RO water purifier as the safest and pure. But are these water purifiers that much safe and do they remove all the impurities from the water? Today in this article, we will discuss about whether RO purifiers deliver us the safest water or not and if they don’t then, what else we can do. So, let us start with the discussion.
How RO water purifier functions?
As it is apparent from the name itself, reverse osmosis (RO) is the opposite of the osmosis process. During the purification process, the water is forced to pass at a high pressure through a permeable membrane, which clears all the impurities and contaminants from the water. This gives us a safe water, free from any kind of harmful toxins.
But here the question comes that whether this water is that much safe to drink or not. Let us see.
Is RO water actually safe to drink?
There are many people who are having questions regarding whether the water purified by the RO water purifiers is safe. Well, if we have to answer this question then we will say-Not really. There are many reasons due to which it can be said that the water purified through the RO water purifiers is not that much safe. We are saying this because of the following reasons: -
It removes all the minerals from the water
It may be known to some people that the RO water purifiers not only remove the harmful chemicals, micro-organisms and other dangerous heavy metals like mercury, arsenic etc., but it also removes all the essential minerals from the water like calcium, sodium, magnesium etc. The reason is the bigger size of these minerals as compared to water molecules due to which membrane does not permit them to pass through it.
That’s the reason why many people do not believe the RO purification technology to be that much safe. And according to a report of World Health Organization, drinking de-mineralized water can cause many health-related issues.
results into the reduction of pH level of water
RO purification also results into the reduction of the pH level in the water. When the water is passed through the RO membrane during the purification process, then many organic and inorganic constituents are restricted to pass through that membrane, but carbon dioxide passes through it and combines with the free hydroxide ions and gives the acidic hydrogen carbonate ions as a result. These hydrogen ions remain unable to react with any substance as all are removed from the water through the membrane. Due to this, pH level of water is reduced and it becomes acidic.
But this acidic water does not make any impact on your body because of its unique ability to maintain a pH level of almost 7.4. The acidic water loses its acidic nature as soon as it comes in contact with human saliva and food in his stomach.
Minimum TDS level that water should have
WHO report suggested that the minimum level of TDS which should be present in water is 100 mg/L. The optimum level of TDS for the chloride sulphate water should be about 200-400 mg/L and for bicarbonate water it should be 250-500 mg/L.
Ill effects of drinking de-mineralized water
As we said earlier, according to a WHO report published in the year 1980, it is not safe to drink a low mineral water or de-mineralized water. Many studies conducted in the past have proved that drinking water which is highly deficient in magnesium or calcium may lead to the cardio vascular diseases. It is also suggested by some researches that drinking a magnesium deficient water may lead to pregnancy disorders, different types of cancers or motor neuronal diseases.
While there are some studies which have suggested that drinking water which is calcium deficient may lead to premature birth and low weight at the time of birth of the infants & higher risk of bone fractures in them.
Should we use RO purifiers?
All the ill effects of drinking de-mineralized water discussed in the above section have created a thought in our mind that whether we should use RO purifiers anymore or not? Most of the people must be thinking to avoid using it. But that’s not the solution of this problem, because if we stop using the RO water purifiers then we will be at risk of being diagnosed with many life-threatening diseases caused by the consumption of contaminated water. No other technique of water purification is as much powerful as RO purification is.
The solution will be to make the RO purification technology something which does not have above mentioned shortcomings. By this, we mean that RO purifiers must be able to retain the essential minerals in the water and eliminate only the harmful pollutants from it or it must be able to re-mineralize the water. Only then the RO purification technology will be called as the perfect method of water purification. Also, ro repair should be done at the regular intervals of time.
How to add the minerals back to the water?
If you are having a RO water filter at your home and it is having a TDS level of purified water which is below 50 mg/L or 50/ppm, then you can add an extra mineraliser cartridge after UV filter. You will be able to do it yourself.
This mineral cartridge will help in adding the essential minerals back in the water like magnesium, calcium, sodium etc. along with increasing the pH level of the water.
You can also buy the special water bottles which are called the alkaline water bottles which could be used for the same purpose.
If you are going to buy a new RO water purifier, then you must choose one with the mineraliser or TDS controller. This becomes even more important if the TDS level in the raw water is 900 mg/L or 900 ppm.
Conclusion
At the end, we will say that there is no doubt that the RO purification is the best technique of water purification and is one of the safest techniques among those available in the market. If you keep the above-mentioned things in mind then you can definitely save yourself from the ill effects of the de-mineralized water.
