Some people have been very excited about making distilled water that they want to make it everywhere they go, whether that’s while they’re out camping or even at the beach. If you’re out camping, a regular electric counter top water distiller should do the trick if you just plug it in to your camper. If you’re in the middle of nowhere, using solar power might not be efficient. You’re better off using fire instead.
But if you’re in a more tropical location, maybe even near a beach, then you can create a lot of distilled water. Either way, you’ll need a pot, and a tarp (or even better, plastic wrapping). And by the way, for more traditional ways, please read How to Make Distilled Water Easy.
First, dig a wide hole (doesn’t have to be deep) and put the tarp over it. Then fill it with water. If you fill it with ocean water, you might get a pleasant surprise at the end… Salt! After the tarp is full of water in the hole, put a pot in the middle of the hole. Make sure the water in the hole doesn’t overflow into the pot. That is, the walls of the pot need to be higher than water you’re submerging the pot into. Then, you want to cover the whole thing with another tarp (plastic wrapping works better). Make sure all these tarps and pots are clean! Then you’ll have to put a small weight on top of the plastic wrap directly above the pot. A very small pebble should do the trick. You have to make sure that the only depression in the plastic wrap occurs above the water pot.
After a long sunny day, you should see two things. The water pot, which was once empty, should now be filled with distilled water. If your tarps, pot, and plastic wrap were clean, then you can bet that water is clean too. The other thing you’ll see in the bottom tarp is salt, if you put ocean water. You’ve got to be careful with the salt. If the ocean water you took had impurities, then it’s possible the salt will contain some of those impurities.
For example, if you took the ocean water right next to a Marina, or the beginning of a river, then you’ll probably have some contaminants that are with that salt. Better play it safe and not consume the salt.
Some people have suggested using solar panels to energize a normal counter top water distiller but the problem with that is that you need to generate about 1 kwh of energy and that’s a whole lot of solar panels
Finally, you could also have a winding set of pipes all filled with water placed vertically inside a black box with a glass on the side where the sun light hits it (you’re trying to create a greenhouse effect). The winding pipe eventual pokes out of the black box from the top and winds around the back side of the box, where the sun doesn’t hit it and into a pot. Eventually, you’ll see drop of distilled water slowly feeling the empty water pot.
