Reverse Osmosis

Reverse Osmosis by dictionary meaning is a process by which a solvent passes through a porous membrane in the direction opposite to that for natural osmosis when subjected to a hydrostatic pressure greater than the osmotic pressure.

Okay what actually does that mean?  Reverse osmosis (RO) is a water purification process that uses a partially permeable membrane to remove ions, unwanted molecules and larger particles from drinking water. The result is that the solute is retained on the pressurized side of the membrane and the pure solvent is allowed to pass to the other side.  Simpler terms; Osmosis is a special case of diffusion in which the molecules are water and the concentration gradient occurs across a semipermeable membrane.  Reverse osmosis occurs when the water is moved across the membrane against the concentration gradient from lower concentration to higher concentration.

Example of reverse osmosis is used for water filtration, for desalination of seawater, and in kidney dialysis machines.

Interesting fact, your sweat glands use osmosis. Your body doesn’t pump water to your skin in the form of sweat. Instead it deposits a little bit of salt inside one of your sweat glands. The water that makes up 70% of your body is attracted to this salt.