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Gummy Bear Osmosis
The WateRenew uses a reverse osmosis filter to remove salt from salt water. How does reverse osmosis work? It helps to understand what osmosis is, since reverse osmosis is simply the opposite of osmosis.
Osmosis is the movement of water across a semi-permeable membrane (that just means that the membrane will only let some molecules through) from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration.
Here’s an experiment to do to see osmosis in action!
1. Measure 4 gummy bears. Write down the measurements
2. Put the gummy bears each into their own cup.
3. Add 1 cup of water to each cup.
4. Leave overnight.
5. The next morning, remove the gummy bears from the cups and measure them.
6. Record your new measurements.
What happened? The water wants to flow across the semi-permeable membrane of the gummy bear from an area of high concentration of water (in the cup) to an area of low concentration of water (in the gummy bear). So, the gummy bear expands!
In the WateRenew process, salt water (which has a lower concentration of water molecules because of all the salt) is put across a semi-permeable membrane from fresh water (which has a higher concentration of water). Because of osmosis, water wants to flow from the freshwater side to the saltwater side, which is the opposite of what we want! So, we have to use reverse osmosis, which means we have to apply pressure to force the water molecules to go from the saltwater to the freshwater side across the membrane. With the old filters, a huge amount of energy was required to do this. But, with the new Graphene semi-permeable membrane being only one-atom thick, the energy needed is reduced by 99%!
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