I have two questions I want to answer. The first being how do pharmaceuticals in water supply get there? The second question is, does reverse osmosis remove pharmaceuticals from our drinking water? You’ll find the answer to the second question is yes and no.
Pharmaceuticals in water supply come from many places. Here are a few of them:
? When animals are given hormones, antibiotics and other drugs, not all of the dosage is absorbed, and some of it gets passed through their system, and is in their manure. This manure ends up in our lakes, streams, rivers, and groundwater, which then ends up in our water.
? When we humans are given pharmaceutical drugs, we don’t absorb the whole dosage and we excrete some of it in our waste and it gets flushed into the sewer system, which ends up in our water supply. Most cities water treatment systems do not filter out these drugs, thus we have pharmaceuticals in water supply.
? When we don’t use the full amount of drugs prescribed to us, we often flush them down the toilet to get rid of them. This is another way these are getting into our water.
Now that I’ve established there are pharmaceuticals in water supply, let’s look at does reverse osmosis remove pharmaceuticals from water.
My research has shown me that a reverse osmosis water treatment system uses a semipermeable membrane to remove contaminates in water. A semipermeable membrane allows certain substances through and leaves others out. A good example of this is Gore-tex fabric. This fabric has a thin plastic film that has billions of small pores cut into it. These pores are big enough to let water vapor out, as in body sweat, but small enough to prevent liquid from passing through, making it waterproof.
In the case of reverse osmosis, water is forced through the semipermeable membrane, and the large contaminates are left behind. The problem with this is, very small contaminates are getting through with the water, which is how we get pharmaceuticals in our water supply. So if you have just reverse osmosis, the answer to does reverse osmosis remove pharmaceuticals from water, is no.
The answer is yes, when you have a reverse osmosis water treatment system that also has a granular-activated carbon membrane that filters out the small impurities that make it through the first membrane. This second step is where the pharmaceuticals in drinking and bathing water are removed. So if you are relying on a reverse osmosis to remove pharmaceutical drugs from your water, make sure it also has a carbon membrane.
Another way to purify your water is by using a two stage filter that uses carbon filtration, ion exchange and sub micron filtration. Both the reverse osmosis with a granulated carbon membrane and a two-stage carbon filter will remove pharmaceuticals in water supply Ask questions, read product specs, and compare which one of the two is the most economical to purchase and to operate.
Juanita Ruby
Renewable Energy World
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Tags: Drinking Water, Groundwater, Pharmaceutical Drugs, Pharmaceuticals, Reverse Osmosis Water
