What is the difference between Reverse Osmosis and Nanofiltration?
Physical separation techniques like reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF), are used to purge contaminants from liquid streams. In recent years, brackish water, seawater, and wastewater treatment as well as the production of potable water have all benefited, from the increased efficiency and cost-effectiveness of RO/NF systems.
But, if you're wondering about what are the distinctions between reverse osmosis and nanofiltration, or, what filtration solution might be used for separation or potable water generation, at a commercial or an industrial facility?
In this regard, the following article will clarify the distinctions between RO and NF.
How are RO and NF different?
Even though RO and NF are extremely similar, their ability to remove different sizes of particles allows us to tell them apart. With benefits such as the hardness removal, nitrate removal, sulphate removal, total dissolved solids (TDS) removal, heavy metal removal, radionuclides removal, and organic macromolecules removal, from waste streams, RO and NF are capable of eliminating finer contaminants.
What is nanofiltration?
The pore size of a nanofiltration filter is about 0.001 micron. Most organic molecules, almost all viruses, most naturally occurring organic debris, and a variety of salts are all removed using nanofiltration. It is frequently used to soften hard water, because it removes the divalent ions that cause it to be hard.
What is reverse osmosis?
The pore size of RO filter is almost 0.0001 micron. These filters produce water that is almost entirely pure. Reverse osmosis eliminates all organic molecules, viruses, and the majority of the minerals that are in the water. It desalinates water by removing monovalent ions.
In reverse osmosis, pressure is used to counteract the water's natural flow, while the two solutions are still separated by a semi-permeable membrane. This forces the water to go from the stronger solution, to the one that is more concentrated. As a result, the pure water is on one side of the semi-permeable membrane, and the contaminants are on the other side.
How similar are RO and NF?
In order to remove dissolved solids, pressure is applied to a liquid stream and it is forced through a semipermeable membrane, in the case of the membrane filtering processes known as RO and NF. Since they can remove even smaller molecules such as dissolved organics, pesticides, and agricultural chemicals, RO/NF closely resembleeach other.
Pretreatment is advantageous for both RO and NF
The RO and NF membranes, which have the tiniest holes of any filtration membranes, can quickly get fouled if bigger particles aren't removed, by upstream filtering techniques like media filtration or MF/UF. The amount of energy required to maintain proper pressure in process streams, can be decreased by pre-treating process streams to eliminate these troublesome particles.
Maintenance of membranes
RO/NF membranes can have a long service life and require only minimal maintenance, when process streams are suitably prepared. This is due to cross-flow filtration, which causes feed water to continuously flow across the filtration membrane's surface. This prevents rejected substances from caking onto the membrane, and instead causes them to be swept away with the waste stream.
How can Netsol Water assist?
We have an experience of over 10 years, in the water and wastewater treatment, as well as, expertise in custom-designing and producing water treatment systems, including Commercial RO Plants. In order to schedule a call with an engineer, or submit a quote request, you can also visit our website. We can guide you through the process of coming up with the best solution, and a reasonable price for your Commercial RO treatment system requirements.
Netsol Water is Greater Noida-based leading water & wastewater treatment plant manufacturer. We are industry's most demanding company based on client review and work quality. We are known as best commercial RO plant manufacturers, industrial RO plant manufacturer, sewage treatment plant manufacturer, Water Softener Plant Manufacturers and effluent treatment plant manufacturers. Apart from this 24x7 customer support is our USP. Call on +91-9650608473, or write us at enquiry@netsolwater.com for any support, inquiry or product-purchase related query.