In order to purify water, reverse osmosis or several other types of water purification are used making it available for potable drinking. What parameters should be looked at and analysed in order to check whether the treated water is fit for use (TDS, TSS, DS, turbidity, pH, etc.)?
RO is used to usually used to remove odour and taste from lowland river water but the water must first be clarified because any solid mater will quickly blind the membrane. It is also used to remove salt from sea water to make drinking water but the product, like distilled water, is usually too bland and is mixed with a safe proportion of raw water to make it palatable. Different membranes have different pore sizes and allow different sized molecules to pass. Water suppliers would subject the water put into supply to the usual analyses for drinking water. There are no special problems with RO and water quality but because it is normally mixed with some untreated water, the end result still needs disinfection before being put into supply.
Hi, depending on feed water source and purification technique, u need to follow the national standards set by the authorities to define water for specific use/consumption. For instance, drinking water has relatively strict regulations and industrial water allows leverage. So, better check your national standards and the parameters defined by them. Usually, pH, turbidity, TDS, hardness,color are important ones.
Quality of water must be within the permissible limits of potable/drinking/domestic water.Limits of WHO is widely accepted, other euivalent standards are also accepted. The most important is periodic monitoring and analysis of water. The result must be displayed.
Since RO technique is applied to hard-waters so as to make them potable, the parameter that best reflects the effectiveness of RO is TDS. However, TSS can also be considered in case of shallow groundwaters/surface waters; but the pore-size has to be taken into consideration. A membrane with same pore size may not be effective for both groundwaters (TDS reduction) and surface waters (TSS reduction).
The standards that water must meet for public supply in the EU are described in the Drinking Water Directive of 1998. I also, for convenience, extracted.the standards as a Word document.
WHO also produce Guidelines for water quality (http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/guidelines/en/) which are realistic rather than legalistic because they are designed for use by anyone, even countries where any water is better than none!
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