Water Distillation
Water distillation is the oldest system of water filtration and purification known to be used by man. Yet, with all the new technology, distillation remains the most effective in removing organic, chemical, and metal water contaminants.
Water is some times referred to as natures universal solvent and being such we must remember that soluble salts many times cannot be removed by simple filtration or chemical means. Distillation is the process by which chemical substances are separated by the differences in their volatilities in a boiling mixture. The liquid reaches its boiling point and than begins to evaporate and is directed through a cooling condenser in which it condenses back in to the liquid having left virtually all impurities behind. Distillation provides you with the purest water known to mankind.To understand how distillation works in filtering water we need only to look at nature. Seen photo below
Distillers use heat to boil water into steam which is condensed back into water and collected in a purer form. When water boils, it leaves impurities behind in the boiling chamber. The rising steam passes into a cooling section and condenses back into a liquid. The condensed liquid (water) then flows into a storage container (Figure 1). Distillers remove almost all of the impurities from water supplies. In fact, distillation is the only means of removing some contaminants. Water used in laboratory applications that require a purity level above 99.97% use steam distillation. (consumer brand distillers provide 99.95% to 99.97% purification) This applies only to “steam distillation”. Distillers using gravity, ceramic, and silver do not remove such contaminants without additional chemicals such as in the removal of soluable salts. As water is heated the impurities in the boiling chamber increase in concentration. The water left behind in the boiling chamber is discarded and the process is started over. Household distillers are designed for providing water for drinking and cooking. Distillation is not economical to distill water for other uses like flushing toilets, bathing, washing clothes, and cleaning.
The Distillation Prossess
