Enhancing Water Purification with Epoxy Glass Tubes in Reverse Osmosis Industry

Though no creature can live without it, too many people take access to clean water for granted. Yet access to potable water is also essential to sustainable economic development. This precious resource is integral for food production, healthy ecological systems, and the survival of modern human society. Potable fresh water is also linked to climate change, with access to it considered a key human rights issue.

With the steady growth of the human population globally, the balance between commercial demands and communities regarding access to water resources has developed. Additionally, it’s become increasingly apparent that sanitation should be included in these efforts, with wastewater treatment essential to these efforts. In these efforts to ensure worldwide access to clean water, epoxy glass tubes in water purification have become increasingly common.

Using Epoxy Glass Tubes in Water Purification Applications 

Both public and private entities globally are studying solutions to more efficiently use and reuse water, which often entails decontaminating and recycling water to bring it back to a potable state. Reverse osmosis is often preferred, as it removes a broader array of impurities, from chemical toxins to harmful microorganisms. It uses a semi-permeable membrane, which separates larger particles and other contaminants to make water potable.

In water treatment applications, reverse osmosis helps remove: 

• Antibiotics, hormones, vaccines, vitamin supplements, and other impurities from pharmaceutical products.
• Biological entities like bacteria, protozoa, viruses, and other organisms can cause disease.
• Calcium, chloride, magnesium, potassium, sodium, sulfates, and other dissolved salts.
• Chemical contaminants like chlorine and other chloramines, fluoride, herbicides, pesticides, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
• Heavy metals include chromium, copper, and lead.
• Radioactive substances like radium, thorium, and uranium.
• Solid particulates become suspended within it, like silt or other sediment.

Reverse osmosis cleans at a molecular level, leaving only pure water behind. Compared to other methods for decontaminating water, reverse osmosis is often preferred as it removes as much as 99.9 percent of contaminants, down to particles the size of a thousandth of a micron. Carbon filters will only eliminate particles greater than a micron in size, which is why reverse osmosis is considered a superior method for water treatment.

How Reverse Osmosis Works

As a multi-stage treatment process, reverse osmosis forces unfiltered feed water through a semipermeable membrane. The tiny pores these membranes use in reverse osmosis trap contaminants while allowing purer water. Pressure pushes this water from the side with fewer contaminants to the side. The wastewater left after sanitization contains high amounts of contaminants, often called brine. In contrast, the osmosis process causes water to reach equilibrium, where both sides contain roughly the same amounts of pollutants.  

However, in the reverse osmosis process, impurities concentrated on one side are blocked from entering the other side of the membrane, where the water contains fewer contaminants. For example, when this process is used on seawater, salt remains on one side, while freshwater is obtained from the other. Reverse osmosis systems also remove chlorine and sediments during a prefiltering stage, before they go through the semipermeable membrane, eradicating solids dissolved in the water. Depending on the type of system, water may go through multiple prefiltering and post-filtering stages.

Basic steps for purifying water through reverse osmosis involve: 

• Before entering a reverse osmosis system, water undergoes a prefiltration process that typically relies on a carbon filter to remove chemicals and VOCs. In contrast, another filter removes sediment that could clog or damage the membrane.
• Water then filters through the reverse osmosis membrane, eliminating dissolved particles.
• Once filtered, water is sent to a storage tank, which remains until used.
• Water then passes through another filter as it leaves the storage tank before being used to remove remaining contaminants.

With industrial systems for reverse osmosis, highly efficient membranes are used to purify water further. These systems are used for municipal water supplies and water treatment plants, though they’re also used in producing semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, food processing, beverages, and other large-scale industrial operations. Reverse osmosis is also used for desalination operations and to remove effluent from municipal wastewater and the chemical industry. Composite materials like epoxy are often utilized within reverse osmosis and other water purification systems.

Epoxy Glass Tubes & Water Purification Through Reverse Osmosis 

Metal piping has historically been used for transporting water and treatment systems, though these tend to corrode over time due to chemicals and minerals within untreated water. Because of their strength and resistance to corrosion, composites, particularly epoxy glass tubes, gained popularity for this application. In water purification systems, epoxy tubes have become standard for desalination and municipal water treatment facilities, especially for high-pressure approaches like reverse osmosis.

The growing use of epoxy tubes in water purification since the 1970s came as a response to the need for these systems to handle higher pressures and remove more contaminants during water treatment. In modern treatment plants, the cost-effectiveness, longer lifespans, and environmental benefits of composites over more traditional piping made from metals and alloys have seen an increasing use of epoxy tubes. In water purification applications, epoxy tubing has become a core component of today’s water infrastructure due to its ability to provide dependable and effective water treatment even under challenging conditions.

Epoxy tubes will likely only expand in water purification applications as the need for long-lasting water treatment methods grows. Reverse osmosis membranes used to treat water are often protected by housings made from epoxy glass tubes. In water purification activities, the reinforced glass fibers of the tubing provide both resistance to corrosion and extraordinary strength, which high-pressure reverse osmosis systems require. By ensuring prolonged structural integrity within the system, epoxy glass tubes minimize maintenance, lowering operational costs for both municipal and industrial water treatment applications.

Epoxy Glass Tubes from Spaulding Composites

Spaulding Composites provides a key component to help ensure the world has a safer and purer potable water supply. To support water treatment applications, Spaulding winds filaments into epoxy glass tubes. In water purification applications, Spaulding’s composite tubing always meets and often exceeds the mechanical requirements necessary for this purpose. Additionally, we provide injection molding services to make interconnectors and other components so our customers can reduce the number of suppliers they deal with.  

Spaulding’s engineering team can also design and customize core tubes with interconnectors to precisely meet customer needs. Once fabricated, we can also offer finishing services for our epoxy glass tubes. In water purification and filtration systems of all sizes, Spaulding understands the need for parts made with our superior composite materials. To learn more about how to use epoxy glass tubes in water purification applications and our other capabilities, contact the composite experts at Spaulding today.