Could someone explain the effect of reverse osmosis, as opposed to distilled, in water as it relates to the PPM silica in a measured amount of well water? In other words would the silica levels be the same?
Thanks in advance.

 

Well... figuring that reverse osmosis is going through a paper and carbon media, it will not remove all of the silica. However, since distilled water is formed from water reaching it's boiling point and then being condensed, it will be in it's purist form.

The Parts Per Million of silica will be higher even in the most elaborate RO system than compared to distillation.

Where as distillation removes ALL impurites if done in the perfect conditions. Thus making the PPM of silica nearly non-existant. Not to mention, the germicidal effects from distillation, because you are boiling the water, it is killing all of the germs and they cannot go through the passage of steam, they will just be left at the bottom of the container in which the water boiled from. When the steam is condensed, there is no minerals (such as silica), germs, and other harmful ingredients that find it's way into water.

Essentially when you distill water, you are separating pure H2O from every other chemical in the mineralized water.

A real life example for distilled water, is by using it for car/truck radiators. Because it is water in its purest state, it will not corrode the radiator because of the minerals that were removed.

Also, NEVER use RO to treat water that has microbial or dangerous properties, such as sewer water, or water that was exposed to fertilizers. The only proper and known way to treat that kind of water is by distillation (hence what water treatment facilities do on a large scale effort.)...

 

Reverse Osmosis works by pressure. Water is forced through a membrane. Whatever fits through the membrane will still be in the output product. Carbon and other cation/anion media is used after the membrane to remove more items. The resulting water is dependant on the type of membrane and pre/post filtering media. My system starts with a 5 micron sediment filter followed by activated carbon to remove chlorine and other things that could be detrimental to the membrane. After the membrane it is stored in a tank with a UV lamp that cycles to break down dissolved organics. It is then filtered through another carbon filter to remove the organics and an ion exchange resin to purify the rest. The final product has less than 3ppb TOC and little else.

 

You are mostly true, under perfect conditions a distillation unit will provide pure H2O. But here in the real world, it is impossible to make any decent quantity of water and remove "all" of the impurities. You will alway have some carryover.

Most powerplant applications are moving toward reverse osmosis to provide their pure water. The requirements that must be met there are much higher than what is required for drinking water.