We have recently aquired a collection of steam powered cleaning/ironing equipment and find that our need for distilled water has soared to litres a week, instead of year.
Thus I want to look at home production.
Anyone done this? It must be a fairly common problem with the increasing popularity of this type of equipment.
Do Liebig Condensors still have daft legal problems connected with them? I could spend a day with some smallbore copper, but would prefer the lab ones.
Ideas please
A dehumidifier will work. The dissolved mineral content of the output water is very low. Clean the filter fairly often.
Neat idea that, but I don't have a need for one, if anything, we need a humifidier. :))
RT
I have been considering build a still for about 6 months (for water only of course). As I don't want to pay the shocking fuel costs I was thinking of trying to make it solar powered. I doubt it would be very fast but it would be free which is a bonus as far as I can see it. Since in our dull weather it would be difficult to capture enough energy to heat a large amount of water I intend heat just a small tube that is gravity fed by the bulk of the water. The main bulk tank will be black to absorb as much heat as possible and the thin tube will be heated with either lenses or a concave mirror.
I wasn't aware of any legal problems surrounding condensers (Liebig or otherwise) but I suppose when I used them I was working in a lab and we had a good reason to have them. A bit of copper pipe in a bucket of water would be ample to condense water though. I wouldn't go to the expense of getting proper lab kit unless I need accurate distilation (e.g. I was distilling something other than water).
On the topic of distilling alcohol I don't think I would do it. There is to much risk of concentrating the methanol in the liquor and not realizing until you have gone blind. I imagine you would be fairly safe if you discarded the first 10% of the distillate though.
prolly 'coz there aren't any.
and the last ....
things have moved on a pace since the olden days. for a start there's this thing called the internet that disseminates useful information on how to avoid many pitfalls that our predecessors fell foul of.
how mad is that ?
RT
De-ionised water is usually adequate isn't it? And even my school chem lab had a machine for making that.
Owain
Boil some kettles and leave te fridge door open?
I wonder if you could do something using reduced pressure so the water boiled at a lower temperature - that probably presents a whole different set of problems, but maybe more economical than boiling at
100 Centigrade and easier than cooling loads of vapour?
You really want to use the heat removed from the condensate to heat the next lot of source water. Exactly how is left as an exercise to the reader!
Last time I was near a Liebig, Customs & Excise were interested in them. Apparently they are paranoic about anything that could "distill" anything. As they are seriously nasty and heavy, I do not wish to offend them in any way, shape or form. :))
(I have heard tales about trying to block copper cylinders with efficient heat exchangers because they are easily reversed into proper alcohol stills)
The bucket and coil seem as good as any I suppose, particularly as I have the pipe.
Cheers
Ok, I will pop out and get a de-ionizing machine tomorrow, any idea how much they cost? :))
I had thought along those lines, but passing steam through a pipe in cold water in the kitchen seemed more in my line of stupidity. It's just to avoid a few quid a week in buying water and the project interests me.
The pressure reduction is not too difficult to obtain, but collection does present a few difficulties.
Cheers for the different input on this. :)
I've seen a "survival" design which involves digging a hole like a small fishpond, covering it with polythene sheet weighed down in the centre with a stone, and a collecting vessel underneath at the lowest point. Solar heat distills water out of the ground which condenses on the sheet and runs down into the collector. If you have space you could fabricate something like that. If you used (say) a polythene tub you could put a pint or two of tap water in it to improve the yield. You can also get solar stills to go with liferafts, but you'd be talking about sailing money....
Wow I never realized you could get all this information from one place. Shame you can't trust half of it because it's written by crack pots that have been drinking to much of their own moonshine.
As with most things producing a good still means more than just sticking a fire under a tin can and condensing what comes off. There is no guide that will give you real, hands on, experience of distilling which is what you need to get it right. It would be like reading a book on brick laying and expecting to get it right first time.
Fortunately the OP only needs to get rid of the mineral content of water which means all that is needed is a fire under a can.
You can pick up fairly cheap reverse osmosis machines now-a-days (less than 200 probably even less than 100). Have a look in marine aquarium suppliers (fingers crossed, in a few months time, I will be able to sell you one :o)).
Defrost the freezer!
Regards Capitol
When I needed a small amount in a hurry[1] I connected the steam wallpaper stripper up to a coil of 10mm Cu I happened to have lying around [3] which I dunked in the kitchen sink with the cold tap running slowly over it and collected the distillate in a cafetiere (although it was quite cold as it came out so a plastic bottle would have done). No doubt if I'd had a continuing need for the stuff the apparatus might have evolved into something more elegant and efficient.
[1] to top up one cell of the car[2] battery which had dried out - the others were OK [2] no longer a problem as some local scally nicked it shortly afterwards [3] as one does :-)
No idea, but local scrotes don't usually need much encouragement to break into a school.
Might need telling where it is ...
The school won't mind, they were wanting to convert the science block into a Media Studies Interpretative Centre anyway, with a Soft Playroom for the hyperactive A-level students.
Owain
Tumble drier?
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