Water Conservation - No Waste Reverse Osmosis Water Purification System
What is a zero waste reverse osmosis system?
Reverse osmosis systems squeeze water through a membrane that lets water through but the contaminants can’t pass through the membrane. The contaminants that are filtered out need to be flushed away from the membrane for the system to work properly. Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems typically flush down the drain 3 to 15 gallons of contaminated water for each gallon of clean water they produce.
From a water conservation point of view this is very inefficient. Watts has come up with a new RO system that recycles the contaminated waste water, eliminating the need to flush contaminated water down the drain.
Watts Premier "Zero Waste" ZRO-4 Reverse Osmosis System
The Watts patented ZRO-4 Reverse Osmosis System is the first system that does not waste water any water. The new Watts RO system simply pumps the contaminated water into your water heater.
The presumption is that it’s ok for the contaminated water is ok to bath in and wash your hands, dishes, and clothes in.
A small pump is connected in series with the membrane unit and they are in turn connected to the cold and hot water supply pipes. When the RO unit is operating the contaminated water from the input side of the membrane is slowly pumped into the water heater through the hot water line.
The instructions say to locate the ZRO-4 RO system at least 25 feet from the water heater. I wish they would tell us why. What happens if it is closer to the water heater? Is it an energy related thing? Is it to keep the contaminated water in the piping, hopefully to be purged when somebody draws hot water and thus not end up stored in a hot tank? I would really like to know.
Does it work with tankless water heaters?
I don’t know. I could not find any information about operation with tankless water heaters, but I presume it would still work. I see no physical reason why there would be a difference. But then there is that 25 foot distance from the heater thing. Does that still apply? Perhaps with tankless hot water you don’t need the 25 foot distance.
Will it work with a Hot Water Recirculation System?
Hot water circulating, often called recirculating systems and or recirc pumps come in several varieties these days. Some are simply hot water circulating systems with dedicated return lines for the hot water circulating loop, and some systems use the cold water return lines for the loop return.
If your hot water system has a recirculation system with a dedicated hot water return line then there should be no problems. However, if you have a system that uses the cold water line as the return then there will be some problems.
The pump for the circulating or demand system causes water to flow through the RO unit as though it were running whether or not it is running at the time, which can slow down the delivery of hot water from a demand hot water system, and can potentially end up putting contaminated cooled off hot water in the cold water lines.
The warm water circulating systems will also end up allowing contaminated water into the cold water piping.
A solenoid valve is incorporated into the retro-fit version of the zero waste system in series with the pump. The valve may prevent the circulating systems from pushing water through the RO system and thus solve the problem but I have not tested it so it’s just a maybe at this point.
What are the contaminants that the Watts ZRO-4 removes?
The Watts ZRO-4 reverse osmosis system reduces Arsenic (V), Cysts, Cyrptosporidium, Giardia, Entamoeba and/or Toxoplasm, Barium, Hexavalent, Chromium, Trivalent Chromium, Copper, Lead, Fluoride, Cadmium, Radium 226/228, Selenium, TDS, and Turbidity.
Reverse osmosis systems squeeze water through a membrane that lets water through but the contaminants can’t pass through the membrane. The contaminants that are filtered out need to be flushed away from the membrane for the system to work properly. Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems typically flush down the drain 3 to 15 gallons of contaminated water for each gallon of clean water they produce.
From a water conservation point of view this is very inefficient. Watts has come up with a new RO system that recycles the contaminated waste water, eliminating the need to flush contaminated water down the drain.
Watts Premier "Zero Waste" ZRO-4 Reverse Osmosis System
The Watts patented ZRO-4 Reverse Osmosis System is the first system that does not waste water any water. The new Watts RO system simply pumps the contaminated water into your water heater.
The presumption is that it’s ok for the contaminated water is ok to bath in and wash your hands, dishes, and clothes in.
A small pump is connected in series with the membrane unit and they are in turn connected to the cold and hot water supply pipes. When the RO unit is operating the contaminated water from the input side of the membrane is slowly pumped into the water heater through the hot water line.
The instructions say to locate the ZRO-4 RO system at least 25 feet from the water heater. I wish they would tell us why. What happens if it is closer to the water heater? Is it an energy related thing? Is it to keep the contaminated water in the piping, hopefully to be purged when somebody draws hot water and thus not end up stored in a hot tank? I would really like to know.
Does it work with tankless water heaters?
I don’t know. I could not find any information about operation with tankless water heaters, but I presume it would still work. I see no physical reason why there would be a difference. But then there is that 25 foot distance from the heater thing. Does that still apply? Perhaps with tankless hot water you don’t need the 25 foot distance.
Will it work with a Hot Water Recirculation System?
Hot water circulating, often called recirculating systems and or recirc pumps come in several varieties these days. Some are simply hot water circulating systems with dedicated return lines for the hot water circulating loop, and some systems use the cold water return lines for the loop return.
If your hot water system has a recirculation system with a dedicated hot water return line then there should be no problems. However, if you have a system that uses the cold water line as the return then there will be some problems.
The pump for the circulating or demand system causes water to flow through the RO unit as though it were running whether or not it is running at the time, which can slow down the delivery of hot water from a demand hot water system, and can potentially end up putting contaminated cooled off hot water in the cold water lines.
The warm water circulating systems will also end up allowing contaminated water into the cold water piping.
A solenoid valve is incorporated into the retro-fit version of the zero waste system in series with the pump. The valve may prevent the circulating systems from pushing water through the RO system and thus solve the problem but I have not tested it so it’s just a maybe at this point.
What are the contaminants that the Watts ZRO-4 removes?
The Watts ZRO-4 reverse osmosis system reduces Arsenic (V), Cysts, Cyrptosporidium, Giardia, Entamoeba and/or Toxoplasm, Barium, Hexavalent, Chromium, Trivalent Chromium, Copper, Lead, Fluoride, Cadmium, Radium 226/228, Selenium, TDS, and Turbidity.
Labels: environment, RO systems, water conservation, water purification
posted by Hot Water Guy at
12:35 PM
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