Can I feed well water into an osmosis system?

This question is quite complex. The manufacturers of osmosis systems for cleaning work often state in their instructions that only municipal city water may be fed into an osmosis system. This is also the case, for example, with all the mobile osmosis systems we sell, which you can find here: Mobile osmosis systems.

In practice, especially in rural areas and in connection with solar cleaning, we occasionally come across so-called "well water sources". Why are these not allowed to be fed into an osmosis system? The whole truth is this: Not all wells are "dangerous" for osmosis systems!
The problem is rather that we are not able to find out on the respective construction sites whether a well can be problematic for a membrane system or not. This is due to the fact that even "drinkable well water" can be dangerous for such a pure water system based on osmosis technology or actually only for the installed membranes. The customer's statement "The water is checked once a year and we have been drinking it for 20 years" unfortunately does not mean that this water is healthy for membrane systems.

Why is that the case? When we talk about problems in osmosis systems caused by well water or unsuitable water sources in general, we mean that in 98% of cases the iron concentration in the water is too high. Although there are exotic, other possible problems (e.g. excessive fertilizer residues in the water), we will ignore these at this point. When it comes to drinking water, we humans can tolerate a much higher concentration of iron than osmosis membranes can. Accordingly, the above statement applies that even the property "drinkable" does not ensure that a well water source may be discharged. Incidentally, "dangerous" here generally means that these water sources can damage the membranes. This is quite annoying and expensive and should be avoided, as membranes can actually last for many years or decades.
In addition, however, "dangerous" well water is often also very hard, which means that even with the alternative - a mixed bed resin - the systems may not break down, but they do generate considerable running costs. In some cases, it can even make sense to "sacrifice" 1-2 sets of membranes for a project, as replacing them is still cheaper than filtering the necessary quantities of water with mixed bed resins.

If your customers only have well water, it is a large project and you receive a current, comprehensive, chemical water analysis from the respective well, you are welcome to send it to us. We can usually make a statement here as to whether the water can be fed into a membrane system or not and how long the membranes will last in each case. All you need to do is send an e-mail to: info@vf-reinigungstechnik.de

However, you can also check an initial water property yourself: If the iron content in the water is above 0.2 mg/L, the water is generally unproblematic. If it is higher, it is usually problematic. However, this is at best a rough indication and not an absolutely reliable statement.