Inexpensive Home Water Distillation

I tested out a few inexpensive methods of water distillation, so I thought I would post some info about it. Why distill? This link describes several benefits:

Benefits of Distilled Water

Some people may find it more convenient to purchase distilled water, but others may not have easy access to it. I have some friends in rural Upstate New York who could probably benefit from home distillation. You can always use steam distillation to create your own essential oils, as well.

Here are a few options I found:

1) Make a Solar Powered Still (see steps 4-6). This was an OK method, and it’s obviously great for saving energy. But, I found it to be a bit long before you have your final result. You also need to have full sun — not a problem in Tucson, AZ a lot of the time, but may be a problem elsewhere. Make sure your smaller bowl is heavy enough so that it doesn’t float when you add your water. 

2) Make a Still from Wine Bottles. This is not my fave for water distillation. I think it is better suited for alcohol distillation (which unfortunately 😦 is not possible in the United States) because of the temperatures needed to vaporize the water. The liquid is put into one of the bottles, then immersed into a pot of boiling water (with a condenser hose between the bottles). If you use a metal condenser hose, you may want to wrap it with pipe insulation. *Sidenote: That’s a cork bulletin board I made for a school project in the background. Easy DIY, just hotglue corks into an empty picture frame.*

3) Cheap Easy Still. This was my fave method out of the three I tried. It was extremely simple and kind of a fun experiment. They give instructions to use a drinking glass to collect the distillate, but I think a canning jar might be safer. Another tip from a similar set of directions suggested placing a small magnet in the bottom of the glass if you use a metal pot. This will keep the glass from sliding around (you’ll understand once you read the link). Also note that you can set your stove heat setting higher, as the original instructions are for wine.

4) Stove Top Still. I haven’t tried this method, but it doesn’t look that difficult. I think it might be one of the better ways to achieve water distillation in your home. You do have to keep the stove on for a couple of hours, but as I said…some people may have limited options in which to obtain purified water.

Chemistry has always been my favorite science, so I really enjoyed testing these out. Kids who are old enough to be around heat sources (supervised, of course) might enjoy the ice method, but younger ones can always learn a bit of science with the solar experiment.