WEBVTT - How Reverse Osmosis Will Save the World 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.600 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.880 and there's Chuck and Jerry's over there somewhere on the 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:22.160 other side of the membrane because she's insane in the membrane, 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:28.040 and this is stuff you should know. I think it's 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.920 pretty funny that I used to love Cyper Hill. Oh. 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.400 I downloaded their album again, like the other day. Yeah, 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:39.440 and it's it still holds up, insane, got no brain. 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.200 I love that guy. I don't remember his name actually, 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:45.080 now I think about I don't remember the other dude's 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.040 name either. I just remember their DJ was DJ Muggs, right. 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:51.400 That sounds about right. Yeah, I remember his name. I 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.800 don't remember the other like the two ms I don't remember. 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.720 I think they liked marijuana smoke if I remember here 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:01.480 there Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had a song about a bomb, 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.680 I believe. Yeah, it's from that's right. I'm gonna go 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.720 listen to that now. You should listen to the album again. 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:10.839 It's still pretty good. They I mean they're talking about 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.520 like shooting people and everything, just like come on, no, 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.920 you don't do anything like that. But um, you know 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.080 there are other stuff. The other stuff they talked about. 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.240 It's pretty good. Yeah, So I am literally going to 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.960 go listen to that now and you can talk about 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.840 reverse Osmosis. Alright. So, Chuck, you made a reference before 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.080 we started um recording that sounded really familiar to me, 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:34.039 but it's probably only going to sound familiar to like 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:39.800 eight other people. You referenced Osmosis Jones, right, and I 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.080 was like, who is that? That sounds really familiar and 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:44.440 I cannot, for the life of me place it, and 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.240 then you said it's from our TV show. Still can't 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:49.360 really place it, but now I kind of know what 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.280 you're talking about. Actually, and now I'm doubting myself. Okay, 0:01:53.760 --> 0:02:01.360 I think Osmosis Jones is uh is a movie? Okay, yeah, 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.200 I think you're thinking of Nash Pluto. No no, no, 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.800 Osmosis Jones is Chris Chris Rock animated movie. Okay, I 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.080 got it mixed up with something. Are are? One of 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.200 our co star actors used to say a lot, which 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.079 was to say Jones on the end of anything That's right, 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:20.880 And I think it reminded me of Osmosis Jones. But 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:23.960 I have COVID, so I'm all over the place. You 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.040 are all over the place. But one thing where you 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.760 really nailed at, Chuck, and I'm really appreciative that you 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:32.920 brought up osmosis, Jones, is because we're talking about osmosis today, 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.640 and in particular, we're gonna focus mostly on reverse osmosis, 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.440 although we'll have to talk about regular osmosis as well. 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.720 How does that sound? Yeah? I mean, can I go 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:48.840 ahead and talk about regular osmosis? I mean, is there 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.600 any better time? I can't think of a better time, 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.399 certainly not in our Radium Girls episode. Yeah. I mean 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.440 this is basically like if you took chemistry in high 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.680 school and you have forgot everything about it since then, 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.800 you might hear the words ostomosis and reverse osmosis and 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.720 be like, wait a minute, that's that's tickling my brain 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:10.600 a little bit. I know I knew that at one point. 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.760 So just a little basic chemistry. One oh one is 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.760 let's just talk about saltwater. Lay it on, um. Saltwater 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.800 is going to figure in. Have almost said heavenly heavily here, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.240 because as you'll see, reverse osmosis is a great kind 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.360 of modern way too, sort of the hip new way 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:33.760 to take salt from water so we can drink it 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:36.680 like you're talking of. If you make a cup of 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.560 salt water and you gargle it, you know for your throat, 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.000 you have some left over, you could use reverse osmosis 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.960 to convert it back into regular water. That's real. Don't 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.680 waste it. And we we talked about I know, we've 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:53.680 done stuff on desalination. We did. We did an episode 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:58.480 way back in the day hauled um, is it possible 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.960 to drink the ocean or something like that. Uh, what 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.920 exactly what happens when we run out of water? I 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.080 think is what it was. That was way off And 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.440 then I'm pretty sure we talked about drinking the ocean. 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.920 We also did one on manufacturing water too, but yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.920 we talked about this desalinating before. That's right. So back 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.039 to chemistry one on one. It's very simple. I don't 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.520 know if you folks remember what a solution is, but 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.400 a solution is when, in this case it's with salt water, 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.640 you have a solvent, which is the water, and then 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:36.480 you have the salute, which is the salt or dissolve 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.279 in the water or whatever else you want to to 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.320 have in there. And this whole thing together is called 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:47.760 a solution and if you put this solution in a YouTube, 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.039 not y o u t ub dot com, but a 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.599 literal beaker shaped like a tube, and you had a 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.200 semi permeable membrane in the middle. Let's just go ahead 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.800 and say gortex in this case, because that's what that is. 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:04.039 Shout out cortex. And you poured this stuff in there 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.279 on one side, and then you poured regular water on 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.120 the other side. That water on the other side is 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:12.240 gonna want to just balance out. It's gonna want to 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:17.360 seek thermodynamic equilibrium, and it's gonna fight its way through there, 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:22.039 through that membrane until everything is nice and level. It's 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.560 got this osmotic pressure and it's gonna push through there 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:28.240 until it reaches that equilibrium because that's where it wants 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:33.159 to be. And that's yeah, because nature is seeking equilibrium. 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:39.200 And because the the higher concentrated side is separated by 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.000 a membrane from the lower concentrated side, it's got to 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.520 make it through that membrane to even things out, and 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.200 as it does, it's actually gonna push the concentrated side 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.719 up the beaker because it's moving into that side through 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.640 the membrane. It's pretty amazing stuff, but yeah, that's I mean, 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.040 that's osmosis, Chuck, nicely done. Why don't you tackle reverse 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:04.320 osmosis m so reverse osmosis so osmosis what you just 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:09.120 described as a passive process that happens because the atmosphere 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.760 above us has weight like air has weight. And in fact, 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.359 if you took one square inch of a column of 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.640 atmosphere of air from the surface of the Earth all 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:22.839 the way up to the exosphere, the tippy top of 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.000 the atmosphere, that one square inch column with way about 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.160 fourteen and three quarter pounds. So another way to put 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:32.520 it is, there's fourteen point seven five pounds per square 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:36.320 ince of pressure at surface level on Earth. Because of 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.040 that pressure, we have that osmotic pressure, and so the 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.440 stuff can kind of move from one side to the other, 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.280 from lower concentration to higher concentration to balance things out. 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:48.360 And it's all because of that. But the whole thing 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.200 is a passive process. There's nothing moving. This is not 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:57.960 it's not requiring energy to take place. Okay, with reverse osmosis, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.680 you're doing the opposite of what you just described, and 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.400 it actually does take energy. You have to create more 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.520 pressure that will overcome the the natural osmotic pressure. And 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.880 what you're doing in that case is actually taking the 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:15.480 solvent in this case water and moving it out against 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:20.240 its natural will, against every fiber of its being screaming 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:22.480 at you that no, this is wrong, this is an 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:27.200 importance against nature. UM. It's moving it through that membrane 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.000 to the other side, to the lower concentration. So what 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.880 you're doing is taking a concentrated solution and making it 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:37.480 even more concentrated by taking out the the in this 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.120 case the water. So what you have on one side 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.400 is saltwater and then saltwater concentrate, and what you have 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:45.880 on the other side is just pure water what they 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:51.760 call ultra pure water UM, and that's basically reverse osmosis. Yeah. 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.840 So if you look into UH to make saltwater not saltwater, 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.800 and you had a couple of tanks and on one 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.400 side you had that UM, that solution of salt water 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.040 or let's just call it saltwater, and it's under that 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.600 you know, regular osmotic pressure that we were talking about. 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.960 It's all happy and well. You gotta apply I think 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.600 about fifty to sixty bars of pressure and you gotta 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.760 push that thing through there, and those salt molecules are 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.640 too big to pass through the membrane, and it's it's 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:25.960 really pretty easy. It's not the most I mean, I 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:28.800 can't go out and build one of these, but it's 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.280 not the most complicated process. It's really just if you 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.040 think about trying to fit something too big through a 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.160 small hole, it's not gonna go. Everything else will, so 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.959 it's left over is salt or you know, sort of 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.640 a briny solution, right, And what you're saying is like 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.520 using pressure to push it through, Like that's that basically 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.800 makes sense. But but when you're almost you're not using 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.920 pressure to to push it. You're just increasing the pressure 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.360 in that concentration. And then reverse OUs moostis happens by 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:02.000 magic because you've over come that natural losmotic pressure. And 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.920 now you know to the to the solution or the 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.000 salt water and the ultrapure water. You know, what's up 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.960 is down. Nothing makes sense anymore. All bets are off 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.360 because you've overcome that natural losmotic pressure. So it's not 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:16.760 exactly like pushing it through a membrane, which is how 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.040 my brain kept going. Um, there's like it's it's a 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.000 little more magic than that. But the upshot of it 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.560 is that that membrane you're using is so small, the 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.640 pores in it are so small that only water can 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.480 make it through, and water, it turns out, was really small, Chuck. 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:36.640 You want to know how small water is, well, prepare 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:38.200 for it, because I'm about to lay it on you. 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.440 The average, actually it wouldn't be average, would be exactly 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.480 the same size. The size of a water molecule is 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:51.720 point to seven nanometers, which is twenty seven hundred thousands 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.600 of a micron, and a micron is a millionth of 0:09:55.640 --> 0:10:01.240 a meter, So a human hair's diameter is about seventy microns. 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:07.600 A water molecule is hundred thousands of one micron. So 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.839 it's really really small, which means that if you can 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.640 make a membrane that is small enough, large enough for 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.160 water to get through, but not much larger than that, 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.079 it's going to keep a lot of other stuff from 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:24.560 passing through that membrane as well. That's right. Uh, maybe 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:26.320 we should take a break and we'll talk a little 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.760 bit about what we've been teasing, which is desalination right 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:57.439 after this. All right, so if you want to, I mean, 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.720 water is is a commodity. We've been talking about that 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.079 a lot on the show for a while and kind 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:07.160 of trying to bang that drum that potable drinking water. Uh, 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.360 you know, it could be a crisis in the near 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.120 or far future for the world. So there have been 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.440 a lot of efforts over the years, uh, kind of 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:16.280 to try and get ahead of this a little bit. 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.160 And the ocean is an obvious place to look because 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.040 there's a lot of water out there. So the efforts 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.439 have been made since I believe about the nineteen fifties 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.559 to try and turn that that salt water into something 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.000 that people can drink or at least use, you know, 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.600 for other purposes. Um, you know, not necessarily like potable water, 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.800 but you know, useing in industries and stuff like that. Yeah. Um. 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:42.560 In particular, we've known how to like distill or to 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:46.599 get water from saltwater pure water from saltwater using distillation, 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:48.880 but that uses a lot of energy where you boil 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:50.800 the water. It takes a lot of energy to boil 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.320 water and boil the salt out of water. Um. And 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:55.960 that was kind of the first attempt. But I think 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.599 in the sixties they started to say, um, maybe we 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.439 could take this ousmosis thing that's happening all over the 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.520 place and reverse it and and we could use that 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.480 to get salt out of water. Yeah, And they figured 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:10.320 out how to do it and it was going pretty well, 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:11.760 but they didn't have a great way to do it 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.040 on a large scale that made it kind of financially 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:19.120 practical to do until a couple of engineering grad students 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.080 that U c l A. Came along. One was named 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:28.319 Sydney Loebe and the other one's name Strini Bassa surre Rajan. Boy, 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.319 you're gonna nail that. Yeah you did? Would you say 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:35.679 it another way or no? No? And I don't have 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:37.520 their names in front of me, but I think that 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.000 you it sounded pretty believable, Chuck. You know what I do. 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.920 Here's a little trick for you. And of course this 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.400 is only works is if you're pronouncing the parts correctly. 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:48.440 But I just like I looked them up on the 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.840 internet and call them and ask them how to say 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:52.720 their names. Well, you could sometimes I look on YouTube 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.000 see if they're interviewed, but um, I just spell it 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:59.920 out dictionary style, like syllable by syllable with big spaces 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.760 in between. Oh yeah, yeah, and then do you make 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.600 the one with the emphasis the syllable with emphasis like 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:09.200 in all caps or something like that sometimes, or they'll 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.600 scribble underline or you know, none of it's like like 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:19.839 real dictionary style. Uh, yeah, I don't. I don't even 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:23.480 know what swat is. It's the upside down. Oh that's 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.680 a schwa. Yes, what's the word we were talking about 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.719 the other day that I loved swing? I hate swing? 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:36.160 You hate I think everybody hated schwing for a little while. 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.040 They're yeah, not a fan, So all right, So I 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.360 nailed those two names. They were grad students at u 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:44.880 C l A. And they were the two gentlemen who 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.960 came up with this basically the first practical reverse osmosis 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.920 membrane using cellulose acetate. And it was the first time 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:56.679 that they could actually use this on a large scale 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.600 and they did so. Uh, this is actually more of 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.720 a small scale operation, but the idea was the same 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:07.200 at a place in Coalinga, California, nineteen sixty five that 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.000 was online for seven years and worked pretty well from 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.240 what I understand. Yeah, and at the very least it 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:16.400 was a very good um proof of concept, I guess, 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.720 you know. And it's showed that yeah, with this new 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.360 this new ascetate membrane, you know, like you were saying, 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.240 you can get a lot more through it at a 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.520 much faster pace. Um, and that's kind of what you 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.880 need if you're going to ramp this up for industrial 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:33.880 style production. And they definitely did. That was nineteen sixty five, 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:39.240 you said it went on online. As of two thousand nineteen, 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:43.000 there's now a hundred and seventy seven different countries producing 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:48.760 desalinated water using reverse osmosis. And in fact, there's I 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.400 think sixteen thousand desalination plants in the world by far, 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:54.960 the most are in Africa and the Middle East, but 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.360 there's a total capacity now today, just since nineteen sixty five, 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:02.800 this is developed where hundred million cubic meters of fresh 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:08.680 water can be produced everyday worldwide. That is just not 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:14.120 so from taking seawater and using reverse osmosis to turn 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.480 it into pure fresh water. That's right. And uh, those 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:20.680 numbers are growing and they need to, which is which 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:22.840 is a great thing. I love it when we figured 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.640 out how to do something and then it's just a 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:30.240 matter of sort of getting more and more of it going. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:32.560 I mean yeah, And I think from what I understand, 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.440 you know, everybody's trying to figure out like UM, you 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:39.160 know how to build on efficiencies or how to continue 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.960 to scale up and how to use less energy and 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.080 time and all that. But it's it's it seems to 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:47.640 be one of those technologies as roughly the same as 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:52.200 it was when they invented it initially and basically UM 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.080 to kind of give just a little bit of detail 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.120 on on how it goes, it's it's you you take 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:02.480 in seawater. Most reverse osmosis plant that UM desalinate seawater 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:06.400 built pretty close to the sea. UM because transportation is 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:08.080 is a big cost. So if you can just pipe 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.200 it right from the sea into your plant, that saves 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:13.920 on a lot of costs and time and energy. UM. 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.520 It's ramped up using pumps and then it's run through 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:22.800 the reverse osmosis filters and under pressure that like you said, 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.040 I think sixty bars of pressure, so it's a pressurized 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:30.800 so that it overcomes the natural osmotic pressure. And it 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.080 is it goes over, not through like I keep wanting 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.280 to think of it going through, like there's a membrane 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.000 in the water's way and it has to go through 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.840 this membrane. That's not how it goes. It goes through 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.480 a tube and in the center of the tube is 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:49.880 another tube um that's wrapped in the membrane and the 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:55.440 concentrate the salt keeps going, but the water that's in 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.600 that concentrate, that salt, that solution um goes through the 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.960 membrane into that inner tube, and the inner tube pushes 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:09.400 that fresh water, that that reverse osmosis water along um 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:13.880 into what's called the production water stream, and then that 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.080 salt water just continues along its way back out to 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.199 the ocean under pressure and what's called the reject stream, 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:24.320 which is not nice, but it's you know, an accurate description. 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.879 And then that's how like you would desalinate water. It 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:34.120 is reject reject water stream. Sure as the reject stream. Sure, Okay, 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.240 there you go. When you have three names, I think 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:42.800 that's more an album title. So maybe just reject stream. Yeah, 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.240 I think reject stream is great. And we'll talk about 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:50.160 that more later. Not the band, but are the imaginary 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:56.400 band the album? Yeah? And who's playing what? Uh So, 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.119 reverse osmosis is not the kind of thing that you 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.320 can just you for salt water. It's a great application, 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.120 of course, but it can you know, you're filtering something out, 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.800 so you can filter out almost anything. Um, if you 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.440 have a local water source that has way too much fluoride, 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:12.800 you can filter out some of that fluoride in a 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:17.840 much more efficient way than you can using charcoal filtrations. Uh. 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.240 We did a show on fluoride like a thousand years ago. 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:22.840 I remember that one. Yeah, I think it's a floride 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:25.719 making a stupid that. I feel like that was one 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.080 of our like fifteen minute episodes or something. Yeah, easily 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.359 at most, I think some kind You talked about the 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.280 ultrapure water, which can is the you know, one side 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.439 of the result, and some companies need that stuff and 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.960 some industries need that stuff. So sometimes you're filtering out 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:46.760 things just to get that ultrapure water to use as 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:51.280 an industry application. I think when you're manufacturing electronics sometimes, 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:56.080 or pharmaceuticals, um, different kind of chemicals, certain medical applications. 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.520 We talked about wastewater a lot of the toilet to 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:05.280 tap that's using reverse osmosis. Right on our best episodes, 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.320 I think, do you think so wastewater treatment? I mean, 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.120 it's hard to say best episode when we've been doing 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.600 this for eighty years, but uh, I thought it was 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.320 a good one. Yeah, I thought it was good too. 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:18.960 I was just surprised to hear you say that. But 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.720 that's yeah, and toilets just happens. It's just gross, but 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:27.400 it's it's sensible for sure. And the point of it 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:31.600 is it's gross entirely in your mind. Like when you 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.920 raise that glass of water that used to be waste water, 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.480 it's just water after it's undergone reverse osmosis. Like that's it. 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:41.480 There's nothing else in it. There's not even a memory 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.280 of that kind of stuff, you know, because despite what 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:49.000 homeopaths say, there's nothing in that water except for the water. 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.000 There are some things that make it through UM, what 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.720 are called containments of emerging concern UM. Some kinds of 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.840 pharmaceuticals can actually make it through. They're small enough that 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.119 they make it through with the water molecules. But for 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.720 the most part, most everything else is filtered out by 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:09.280 reverse osmosis UM. And one of the reasons that are 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.520 One of the other industries that use it chuck is 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.879 like the beverage industry, because you can take tap water 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.960 from anywhere, run it through reverse osmosis filter and move 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.040 even more of it through faster because you're not having 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.359 you're not dealing with a briny salt solution. Like this 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.160 is just tap water and you're convert you're basically turning 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:31.720 it into a blank slate. So you could make like 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.639 a soft drink taste the same anywhere in the world 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:37.480 just by using the local tap water to produce it, 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.480 you know, and now you have production facilities all over 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.440 the world, so you don't have to transport it because 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.840 you're able to start with reverse osmosis water. Oh yeah, 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:51.119 they use it, uh, separating away from milk. They use 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.840 it in the wine industry some now they use it 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.560 to make maple syrup. They remove that that sugary goodness 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:03.359 from the water and the sap. What else, um, let's see, 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.719 they use it for recycling. One of the other this 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.160 is a big big deal is we'll see um. When 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.280 you when you produce all sorts of stuff um through 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.919 industrial processes or if you recycle things, you have to 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.119 use all sorts of other chemicals you produce, like sorts 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.680 of wastewater is a byproduct, and wastewater is really hard 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.480 to get rid of without contaminating other water because it 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:28.679 mixes really well. So one of the good things you 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:32.320 can do is take wastewater, run it through reverse osmosis, 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:36.040 and you're basically catching all of the stuff that was 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:39.679 once mixed in with the water um and making it 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.159 into a much more disposable, much closer to solid form, 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.359 and then also producing reverse osmosis water that you can 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:49.440 use for all sorts of other applications as well. And 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.440 speaking of recycling, a little bit different kind of recycling. 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:56.760 But some of these, and you know, not all of them, 0:21:56.760 --> 0:21:59.200 they're you know, there's nothing that gets me going more 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:03.040 than it contained system. And some of these are contained systems, 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.439 which is when you have a system that kind of 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:09.720 feeds itself. We talked about these high pressure pumps that 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:11.840 force out what did you call it again, what was 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:17.480 the band? Rejects stream, the reject stream. That's not the 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:19.840 God help you if you call him the reject strange, 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.080 that's reject stream. That's like a letterman miss step or something. 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:25.360 And you got a cool logo with just an RN 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:27.800 and S that sort of are snaking around each other 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:30.399 or something like that. This is what I see. Do 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:33.440 you know remember the grateful dead kid with the ice 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:38.000 cream cone on his head? Sure, I remembering along those lines, 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.240 But then rather than an ice cream cone, he's got 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:44.880 a reverse mohawk like the bad guy in Death Wish three. See, 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:48.399 I was thinking more like the White Snake logo. Oh no, 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.399 it's I don't think so. No, you just blew my 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:54.640 mind a little bit. I'm trying to recover here by 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:58.760 tap dancing. But I don't know, man, maybe not to 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:01.520 get further down this road. But the other day I 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:04.280 saw that there was some big festival in Europe with 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:05.960 all these metal bands, and I was like, oh, looks 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:08.080 kind of cool, and White Snake was playing. I was like, 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:10.600 that was guys still playing. It's like, let's let me 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:12.280 go check them out and see what they sound like. 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.480 Just do yourself a favor and go to YouTube and 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.080 watch like a White Snake festival from like just like 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:21.920 put In twenty nineteen. Let's say, do they just play 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:24.640 all their old hits? Are they making new music? Oh? Well, 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:26.560