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reverse osmosis

Reverse osmosis is a way to get clean water out of dirty water or salt water by forcing water under pressure through a membrane.

(noun)

An example of reverse osmosis is the process of filtering polluted water under pressure.

See reverse osmosis in Webster's New World College Dictionary

a method of extracting essentially pure, fresh water from polluted or salt water by forcing the water under pressure against a semipermeable membrane, which passes the pure water molecules and filters out salts and and other dissolved impurities

See reverse osmosis in American Heritage Dictionary 4

noun

A process by which a solvent such as water is purified of solutes by being forced through a semipermeable membrane through which the solvent, but not the solutes, may pass.

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