Abstract
Reverse osmosis (RO) drinking water stations have been introduced to provide safe drinking water for areas with prevailing chronic kidney disease with unknown (CKDu) etiology in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. In this investigation, RO drinking water stations established by community-based organizations (CBO) in the North Central Province (NCP) were examined. Water samples were collected from source, permeate, and concentrate in each station to determine water quality and performance. Furthermore, the operators of the systems were interviewed to evaluate operational and maintenance practices to identify major issues related to the RO systems. Results show that the majority (>93%) of RO systems had higher salt rejection rates (>92%), while water recovery varied from 19.4% to 64%. The removal efficiencies of hardness and alkalinity were averaged at 95.8% and 86.6%, respectively. Most dominant ions such as Ca2+, Mg2+, K+, Na+, Ba2+, Sr2+ Cl−, F−, and SO42− showed higher rejections at averaged values of 93.5%, 97.4%, 86.6%, 90.8%, 95.4%, 96.3%, 95.7%, 96.6%, and 99.0%, respectively. Low recovery rates, lower fluoride levels in product water, and membrane fouling were the main challenges. Lack of knowledge and training were the major issues that could shorten the lifespan of RO systems.
Highlights
Safe and clean drinking water demand has been exponentially increasing around the globe due to the water quality degradation by environmental pollution as well as depletion of natural water bodies with the climate change
There were different models of Reverse osmosis (RO) systems manufactured and distributed by different companies operating under different communitybased organizations (CBO) in the study area (Table S1)
Lack of essential minerals in the product drinking water, lower recovery rates, fouling and scaling, and lack of proper and standard guidelines for RO system operation have been identified as major issues with RO stations in the North Central Province (NCP)
Summary
Safe and clean drinking water demand has been exponentially increasing around the globe due to the water quality degradation by environmental pollution as well as depletion of natural water bodies with the climate change. Rural communities in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, which cover two-thirds of the island, have suffered from severe health issues regarding the consumption of groundwater [1,2,3,4]. It has been emphasized that the drinking water quality issue might be the major cause of the origin of kidney disease [7,8]. The major drinking water source of the farming community in the dry zone had been raw groundwater for several decades. The conventional water treatment technologies used in Sri Lanka do not have the capability to remove excess dissolved minerals and possible nephrotoxins in the high hard groundwater in the dry zone. Advanced drinking water purification technologies such as RO membrane technology have been introduced and widely spread throughout the dry zone in the last decade to improve the drinking water quality [9,10]
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