Many people get distilled water and reverse osmosis mixed up. It is understandable; the two seem to offer the same thing. However, both go through very different processes and offer many different pros and cons. It’s important to compare the two to understand which is better for you.
Reverse Osmosis
This is commonly referred to as hyper filtration. Really, it filters the water to remove the particles from it. Water is then purified by removing all the impurities, including minerals and salts, to improve color and taste. The water passes through a membrane that is only large enough to allow the water particles to pass through.
Crossflow is also not commonly used to ensure the membranes are self cleaning. The substances collected during the process are swept away.
Distilling Water
The distilling process does something similar but with heat rather than a membrane. The water is vaporized, but the chemicals and unwanted nutrients will not vaporize. Everything that could possibly be harmful to the body is left behind.
The vaporized water then goes through a condenser to cool and become a liquid again. All that is left behind is the pure water. The chemicals, bacteria, minerals and everything else is left in the vaporizing section.
Which Is Better for You?
Both offer the same benefits: you get some close to pure water. There are some problems with reverse osmosis though. You need to make sure the membranes have not been damaged, so the holes are too small for all the particles. Some may get through. With the distilling process, nothing but water will go through because the boiling points are much higher than the water. It is also easier to clean everything out when distilling the water.
Essentially, Reverse Osmosis removes almost everything in the water, leaving something that is for practical purposes almost the same as Distilled water, except maintenance of the Reverse Osmosis is constant and costly… and if you fail to do proper maintenance, you might actually end up drinking dirty water and getting sick!
There is pretty much one way to consistently get pure water, and that is by using a water Distiller. However, if the Reverse Osmosis is well maintained and the filters constantly updated, then Reverse Osmosis will create water that is basically the same thing as Distilled water. Distilling and reverse osmosis both offer the benefit of removing all the chemicals, bacteria and harmful minerals, so all you get is clean, tasty water.
