One of the best methods of purifying water is the distillation process. It all begins with a heat source that vaporizes water, causing it to become steam. As the steam cools and condenses back into water, the contaminants are separate out due to boiling point differences. The result? Crystal clear, perfect water.

Don't be fooled into thinking that your drinking water is pure just because it comes from a well, spring, glacier, or other location that is considered to be pure. That's not the case. All naturally-occurring water has things in it we don't need to be drinking.

The distillation process takes untreated water (also referred to as raw) and heats it to the boiling point where it starts to vaporize. The trick to getting 100 percent pure water is to maintain the water at a constant temperature and keep the vaporization process going. It's at this constant temperature that the separation of contaminants takes place; while the water is vaporizing, the other elements you don't want in your water are NOT vaporizing, due to differences in their boiling points.


The removal of the elements you don't want in your water is made possible because the harmful minerals and compounds in water either have a lower boiling point than water itself, or a higher boiling point. Taking advantage of these differences is what enables us to distill--to separate--water from these undesirable compounds. The separation process also applies to disease organisms. Although so small you can't see them, they are eliminated out of the boiling water so they can't pollute your end product – the purified drinking water.

When the water is vaporized in the distillation process, the steam is funneled into a condenser where the water converts back to its liquid form. As it collects, the fluid gathers in a container. The remainder that didn't vaporize is referred to as sediment, and it stays in the original container that held the water prior to its vaporization. To be certain of clean water, one can re-run the water back through the unit to ensure all other foreign elements have been removed.

Depending on the kind of water distillation system you have, you may not need to repeat the process. In an interesting note, the units used to distill many liquors (such as gin, brandy, and whiskey) are similar to the units commonly used to distill water.

Currently the conventional method to heat the water is electricity or gas, but that hasn't stopped evergreen proponents from proposing solar power. While a viable alternative, it would take a great deal longer to vaporize water and only in smaller quantities.