In an RO/DI housing the water enters trough the sides of the cartridge, enters the cartridge trough the bottom and exits the top.
You can use the inside canister full of media installed in the housing same way you will with an RO/DI system with one caviet, you need to modify the cartridge.
Regular cartridges have a filter paper in the bottom and a similar very fine fiter at the top of the cartridge, those have to be removed and replaced by a perforated or slitted plate (doughnut shaped) at the bottom and a similar plate at the top glued to a pice of PVC pipe that will act as a chamber for the outlet.
If you leave the paper and fine filter at the outlet they get plugged with detritus very fast loosing all flow trough the cartridge.