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What is Nanofiltration?

The "Goldilocks" membrane sitting right between Ultrafiltration and Reverse Osmosis.

The Membrane Spectrum

When designing high-end water filtration systems, engineers refer to the pore size spectrum. On one end is Ultrafiltration (0.01 micron) which lets minerals and salts through cleanly. On the extreme other end is Reverse Osmosis (0.0001 micron) which strips literally everything including healthy calcium, and requires a pump to overcome the resistance.

Nanofiltration (NF) operates at roughly 0.001 to 0.002 microns. It is often referred to as "Loose RO".

The Benefits of NF Technology

Nanofiltration is extremely popular in the dairy and industrial pharmaceutical sectors, but is slowly reaching premium residential countertops for three distinct reasons:

  1. Selective Mineral Permeability: It is tight enough to strip out dangerous heavy metals (like lead and arsenic) and synthetic microplastics, but just loose enough to let highly beneficial monovalent ions like calcium softly slide through, resulting in great-tasting alkaline water without needing a remineralization cartridge.
  2. Lower Operating Pressure: It requires significantly less electrical wattage to push water through than RO.
  3. Less Wastewater: While it still requires a flush/drain line, it produces substantially less rejected wastewater compared to standard RO systems.