Skip to main content

Difference Between RO and UV Water Purifiers

Perhaps the only major difference between these two water purifiers is that a reverse osmosis purifier removes the dissolved solids in the water where as a UV does not.

Both the systems are equally effective at killing the bacteria and parasites in the water. However, the RO water purifier will also remove the dead bodies of these parasites where as a UV purifier will simply kill them, make them inert and the water safe for drinking.

The advanced reverse osmosis water purification systems also use UV along with RO to be more effective at killing the bacteria and parasites. This is because UV is thought to be more effective at eliminating more kinds of pathogens than just the RO filtration system.

The RO membrane can also develop small tears that can allow some bacteria to get through. The UV addition should take care of that possibility as well.

So the only job that a reverse osmosis water filter effectively does differently from the ultraviolet water purifier is that it removes the dissolved solids like calcium magnesium, copper, lead, cadmium etc.

Ultraviolet water filters usually comes with sentiment and active charcoal filter attachments. The sediment filter is capable of catching all the bigger dust particles as such as silt and rust whereas the active activated charcoal removes solvents like chlorine, organic compounds, bad odour, bad taste and many other solvents. These filters combined with the treatment through UV give the water that is largely safe to drink. The only exception is if you have dissolved the toxins in your water supply which the ultraviolet water filter will not be able to remove.

The question arises that does your water supply have any toxic solids dissolved in it? If you are drawing from an underground water supply or an old well or from a turbid surface water supply, yes you need a reverse osmosis system to purify the water as it may contain harmful dissolved solids.

It’s highly recommended that a well water supply be run through an RO water filter.

When the sales people come to your house, they carry a TDS meter and they will test the TDS of your regular water supply. One automatically believes that high TDS means that there are a high degree of dissolved impurities in the water. TDS does not imply impurities, although it can. And even if it is just salts, a higher limit than 500 is not recommended both according to Indian and US authorities.

Usually surface water sources should not contain excessive toxins. Underground water sources will absorb whatever minerals or compounds the water passes through from the layers of soil and rock above it. But the fact is that the surface water resources are also getting highly polluted due to industrial waste, human waste, pollution and general misuse.

Therefore, the high TDS levels may not just be from salts but also from all these undesirable sources. Underground water sources can also get contaminated and also naturally contain higher levels of iron, sulfur etc. This is one of the primary reasons why people prefer to use an RO water purifier today in their homes.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How Much Water Does RO Water Purifeir Discard As Waste Water

Most people are not aware of how much water gets wasted in their reverse osmosis water purifier. A company will claim 1:2 ratio but that is mostly not the case. Most ro water purifiers will discard 80% of the water. I have measured the amount of water that gets wasted as I collect all the extra water to be used for other household purposes. My reverse osmosis water purifier discards at least 4 to 5 L of water and that's in summers and when the membrane is new and unclogged.  Most people do not know that a reverse osmosis water purifying system discards a lot more water the colder the water gets. So it's not surprising for the amount of discarded water to double in winters. Another important observation that I have made is that even though the membrane life is 6000 L , there is degradation in its performance after the first 1500 L or so. It starts to discard a lot more water to filter each litre of clean water. This happens because all the filtered out TDS starts to clog the me...

Is the water coming from our taps safe for drinking?

Let me tell you about two instances that makes me believe that the water supply we already have is not all that bad. When I got a reverse osmosis water purifier installed in our home the company that installed the system is also obligated to check the current water supply for bacteria like E. coli and other contaminants. The sample is sent to the labs for testing and the results come back in a month or so. In my case it came back negative for the presence of any dangerous bacteria and pathogens. Unfortunately, it did not tell me anything about other contaminants like heavy metals, chlorine, fluoride etc. The second point is that the help in the house such as the gardener and other people working outdoors routinely drink the water from the garden hose without any adverse effect on the health. Not to mention that we ourselves use the tap water for everything else apart from drinking such as washing utensils,  brushing teeth, showering etc. It's true that people in India have develop...

How to purify water at home RO or UV

Today, UV and reverse osmosis are two most common kinds of domestic water purification methods. Clean drinking water is a bigger issue in the eastern and the developing countries like India. The cities have a pretty reliable municipal water supply system but people do not feel confident relying on the quality of tap water supply for drinking. Expensive water purifiers like reverse osmosis are becoming common. The cheaper option is UV water filters with activated charcoal and sediment cartridges. But reverse osmosis systems have been promoted quite strongly as the last word in water purification and as something that every household must have in order to protect the health of loved ones from waterborne diseases and toxic dissolved substances. This is true. They have their dis-advantages as well, but the RO water purifiers are currently the last word in water purification and provide the safest water to drink. Further more, they can purify water from mostly all sources...