• Animals have access to clean, fresh water on demand – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Saves time and labor by reducing or eliminating your reliance on water bottles, allowing you to utilize staff in smarter ways.

• Reduces ergonomic risks by removing all the heavy lifting, bending, twisting and turning associated with the labor-intensive bottle process.

• Every Edstrom drinking valve is specifically designed, precisely manufactured, expertly calibrated, and individually tested to ensure animal safety.

• Our unique Reverse “S” manifold design is a continuous section of pipe with no dead legs or places for bacteria to hide, allowing for thorough water exchange.

• Complete monitoring of the automated watering system verifies performance and keeps all parameters under control, safeguarding your research animals and studies.

• Reduces micro-environment intrusions.

Suppress Biofilm Formation with Reverse Osmosis
RO machines are key in managing biofilm development in watering systems. Biofilm is a collection of bacteria surrounded by slime. These slime cities thrive wherever there is water. Biofilm bacteria have sticky polymers that hold it together and cement it to a pipe wall. These bacteria can cause infection and disease in laboratory animals. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one such bacteria that can infect animals with suppressed immune systems. Biofilm is also responsible for corroding pipes, clogging water filters, and the rejection of medical implants. Unfortunately biofilm cannot be prevented or eliminated, but it can be managed. Water purification can help. Reverse osmosis provides nutrient-poor water, which supports less biofilm than regular tap water, resulting in a thinner, less harmful biofilm.

How Reverse Osmosis Works
Reverse osmosis is a water purification process in which water is forced by pressure through a semi- permeable membrane. In normal osmosis, water flows from a less concentrated solution through a semi-permeable membrane to a more concentrated solution (see Figure 1). Reverse osmosis uses pressure to reverse normal osmotic flow. Water flows from a more concentrated solution through a semi-permeable mem- brane to a less concentrated solution.

Permeate and Concentrate Flows
The feedwater to the reverse osmosis system flows over the surface of the membrane and a percentage of the water is forced through by pressure. This is purified water or permeate. The remaining water, concentrate, retains the rejected contaminants and is drained. The percentage of feedwater that is recovered as permeate, called percent recovery, is typically 50 percent. The other 50 percent is drained.