Just want to share with you the arguments that I had with the Doctor of one of the foreign embassies that we have here.
They want to purchase 75 GPD home RO units from us to be provided to all their embassy staffs. This is part of their program to ensure the safety of all their employees when it comes to drinking water. They are negotiating for 35 units to be installed at every house of all the embassy staffs.
When I talked to their doctor, he told me that the said unit is sufficient enough to eliminate all the disease causing micro organisms from the water considering that proper disinfection maintenance will given to the RO unit.
I was recommending a UV set to ensure that microorganisms will be eliminated totally but he rejected my proposal.
According to him, since the RO membrane is at .001 micron rating and within the ionic range as per Filtration Spectrum, then no micro organisms will penetrate through its pores since the smallest micro organism is more than .001 micron, therefore bacteria aspect will not be an issue.
Considering his argument, I just asked him to sign a waiver wherein he did not consider the use of UV set for disinfection purposes and that we will not be liable for any bacteria issue that the RO water might have. He confidently signed the waiver and assured me that nothing wrong will happen. He even boasted that he had made similar installations abroad applying the same concept and no untoward incident happened. So, the purchase was made and installations were conducted to all the staff’s house all located in Metro Manila using MWSS water.
As for my argument, though it is true that the smallest micro organism cannot penetrate the pores of the membrane, we have to consider its ability to elongate itself and thus penetrating the pores during downtime or when system is not working.
When talking of membranes, any breakthrough of minerals can be tolerated by our body but breakthrough of disease causing micro organism cannot be tolerated by the human body and considered to be health hazards.
Membranes are designed to remove salt and other minerals from the water but not as disinfectant, considering the basic concept of filtration which is “corresponding treatment for every deficiency found in water”, there is no logic using RO membrane as disinfectant, we can have the options of UV, OZONE, CHLORINATIONS and other similar disinfection process.
Just sharing my thoughts.
- Orly Shanghai
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