Distilled Water

Everyday, every hour, every minute, the earth makes distilled water on its own by evaporating surface water from oceans, lakes, and even the earth itself, through the process of evaporation. And that’s pretty much what distilled water is, water vapor that has condensed back into liquid form.

When the earth evaporates water from the oceans, it creates clouds, which under the right conditions, will release all water back into the earth in the form of rain, and the cycle starts all over again.

Contrary to popular belief, boiling of the water is not necessary to create evaporation. However, if you’re creating distilled water at home, you can either wait “forever” for the water to evaporate under normal atmospheric conditions, or you can speed up the process by increasing the temperature of the water, which eventually boils and becomes water vapor.

When you’re cooking, by putting water in a pot and heating it up, you’re unknowingly creating distilled water. Of course, with a regular cooking pot there’s no way to collect that distilled water – although you might see the water droplets on the lid, which is in fact distilled water.

There are many ways on How to Make Distilled Water Easy, but mother nature definitely takes the crown when it comes to making it the easiest. If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you could also harness the passive power of the sun in your backyard or balcony to create distilled water. You’ll have to build a lot of custom parts, and you can get extra fancy by having the water tank that you’ll be heating up re-fill automatically every time it becomes empty.

There are other ways to harness the power of nature to make your own distilled water. For example, windmills have been popular for centuries. You can either use a wind turbine to generate electricity which in turns powers a water distiller or you can Gerry-rig a traditional windmill design and adapt it to create distilled water through heat generated by friction. You would need to change the gear ratio so that the slow speed in the blades turn into high revolutions in the shaft, itself attached to something that creates friction (and therefore heat) which will eventually heat up the water and create steam. Whatever is that you use to create friction is going to have to be replaced over time; it’s just like the break pads in your car, eventually the heat erodes them and need to be replaced. So, if it sounds inefficient, it probably is.

We like to romanticize living in the last frontier, away from civilization in peace and tranquility but, sometimes technology can make things so much easier when you connect with Nature. Connecting solar panels or a wind turbine to create electricity to power a regular counter top water distiller is probably the easiest of solutions for distilling water. Unless of course, you’re mother nature. In that case, then the sun is your right hand and the oceans and lakes are your left hand, and together you make the best synergy available.

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.