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RO is a process where water having more than the desirable salt content is put in one part of a vessel with two compartments separated by special media and pressure is applied on the water. This results in only the pure water going across the media to the other compartment with the salts remaining in the same compartment. Thus the process results in accumulation of salts in the first compartment. Beyond a certain concentration of salt the process will not proceed further and the water which contains all the salt is rejected.
Because of this, if one starts with say parts of water, the process yields only about parts of good water and the other parts which contain all the salts present originally in parts have to be thrown away.
Let us start with osmosis, the tendency of particles in a more concentrated solution to move to a less concentrated solution through a semipermeable membrane. This is a natural occurence in virtually all systems.
Reverse osmosis is th exact opposite: the movement of particles from a less concentrated slution to a more concentrated solution. However, this process is not natural and requires the use of pressure. The pressure will push particles from the LESS concentrated solution to the MORE concentrated solution so that the LESS concentrated solution is purified further. This works in any RO system with the help of pumps. In the case of desalination by RO, pumps force concentrated seawater through several canisters of filters so that all particulates and salts are removed by the filters and the water is purified to required specifications.
