# Distilled Water



## meatheadmerlin (Nov 30, 2013)

Hello All.

I didn't see a specific post on distilled water, so I figured I try to start a discussion.
With the amount of water some of the processes in refining can take, I don't want to be spending a lot of money at the store for distilled water when tap water will suffice. That being said, are there any specific instances that it is absolutely necessary to use distilled water people would like to share?

In the mean time, I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on reducing contaminants in tap water. From what I know, simply boiling the water long enough and filtering once cooled and settled can improve it's purity. This will drive off hydrogen sulfide gas (sulfur smell), most municipal chlorination chemicals (but not fluoridation), and cause some minerals to precipitate on cooling (especially excess calcium deposits).
Can anyone comment on the effectiveness of using water purifiers like softening systems or Britta filters for reducing contaminants? I will probably eventually be making my own distilled water once I get the proper glassware (boiling flask, fractionating distillation column, condenser, ...), as an acquaintance experiment at the very least for my introduction to distillation.


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## rickbb (Nov 30, 2013)

You can remove chlorine simply by letting the water sit in an open container. Heat will also drive it off, no need to get it boiling hot though.

Water softeners, (ion exchange resin beds), will greatly reduce the mineral contents. If you put several in series you can get close to DI water. 

Another method is reverse osmosis, forcing the water under high pressure through a membrane with microscopic holes in it that allow water molecules to pass but not minerals.

Unless you plan to generate lots of DI water though, (hundreds of gallons), it's cheaper to just buy it in bulk from a big box store.

You need DI water when mixing chemicals with, and for washing gold and PGM's, not so much for Silver and not for base metals like copper, iron.


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## goldsilverpro (Nov 30, 2013)

The only time I use distilled water is for dilution or rinsing when there is silver in solution. City tap water is usually chlorinated and, therefore, silver chloride will be precipitated, I assume from chloride ions produced from the chlorine. The AgCl clouds the solution and makes it difficult to observe the reaction. Also, if the final silver is cemented and melted, the AgCl will end up in the slag. The AgCl is a pain to deal with. Distilled water is very cheap compared with the high silver values usually involved in the solutions and the hassles that occur if you don't use it.


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## Westerngs (Dec 1, 2013)

I agree with GSP. The only time you really need distilled or deionized water is when working with silver nitrate.

For those that require hundreds of gallons of chlorine free water, an activated carbon filter will work perfectly. No need to pay a water service company for deionized.

If you are trying to make ultra-high purity metals, or analyzing for trace impurities, that is another story, you will need deionized water.


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## Harold_V (Dec 1, 2013)

I refined for years, using tap water (chlorinated) for everything except specific test solutions and silver processing. I didn't even use distilled water when dissolving base metals and silver after inquartation. I knew I'd recover any traces of silver from chloride when I processed my waste materials, which proved to be correct, and to benefit, as it acted as a collector for greater values. 

Many suggest that they use distilled or deionized water in place of tap water so they can ensure the quality of their gold. A rather unusual mindset, considering the vast majority of contaminants in water will not report in gold. Water high in manganese or iron might present problems, but such water would also not lend itself to drinking. If your water is good enough to drink, it's more than good enough for use in most operations. Save your money for things that really make a difference. 

I don't get it. Some guys obsess over the water they use, then melt their gold in a dirty dish, with a dirty torch. Which one do you think is better?

Harold


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## nickvc (Dec 2, 2013)

A quick cure for those who need chlorine free water in volume for silver refining came I think from 4metals but i could be mistaken, fill a large plastic container with tap water and add a small volume of silver nitrate, stir and allow to settle. This should allow the free chlorine to form silver chloride, decant carefully and save the chlorides for later treatment and your water should now be fine for silver refining.
As Harold pointed out for nearly all refining processes standard tap water will be fine and in some cases such as inquarted gold and PGM bearing scrap a benefit as the silver chloride will carry any Pt with it.


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## rickbb (Dec 2, 2013)

I use DI water simply because I live in the country and have well water. 

No chlorine but lots of iron, manganese and other minerals, very hard water.


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## goldsilverpro (Dec 2, 2013)

At my last refinery, I rented a DI water unit, but it was mainly for my 30 gallon silver cell.


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## JHS (Dec 2, 2013)

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum today.
I had a bucket of ap sitting for six months with 50 or so cpu's.
I more or less forgot about it.yesterday,in the process of cleaning up everything,i poured off what was left into a few beakers to filter it.I used a small plastic tub to rince the cpu's in some h2o.had a nice little bunch of foils in the h2o which was a little green from the ap after finnishing the rince.
rinsed the buck with the rest of the foils in the ap.I left the little tub on the bench with the foils,to go and get a bite to eat. 
To my suprise when I got back there were no foils in the little tub that had the light green h2o.
I picked up a jug of city water,instead of the di h20.
even with the very small anount of chlorine and small amount of hcl that was in that tub,it put the foils into solution.
I filtered it,put it on low heat and cooled it.I then put .5 grams of smb in it.then went to the house not feeling on the top of my game.
This morning I checked it and had a nice little bit of light brown gold in the bottom of the beaker.
The whole point of this post is that there was a very small amount of hcl/cl in this quart of water and it still reacted.
A simple mistake of h2o but the end result was good.
john
P.S.This happened back in september.If I had filtered the foils before thinking of my stomach, there would have been no problem.


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## MysticColby (Dec 2, 2013)

I happen to have one similar to this: http://www.amazon.com/Water-Distiller-Countertop-Enamel-Collection/dp/B00026F9F8
My Dad had it when he died a few years ago, now I use it and can't live without it.
I found a piece of plastic tubing that perfectly fits into the output, I just have it drain into a 5 gallon water jug that I store until needed (keep refilling until the jug is full).
It works well: fill the pot with a gallon of water, plug it in, press the button, wait ~4 hours, turns itself off. It also helps warm the house on cold days 
Pretty sure the electricity to run this is much less than the $1/gallon Safeway charges, but I haven't tested it. I should do that just for giggles... the room heater part will reduce heating costs, so it's essentially free 
I use it for basically everything refining-related. dilute solutions, rinse filters, even a quick rinse of glassware after cleaning so minerals don't stick after water evaporates.


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## saadat68 (May 29, 2017)

Hi
I have some silver source ( see this topic please: http://goldrefiningforum.com/~goldrefi/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=25632&p=272851#p272851 )

I want to boil tap water then wash my scraps with it and let to dry and then go for leaching with nitric acid and distilled water. In this way do I lost any silver or produce silver chloride ?

If we have chloramine in tap water can it make problems like chlorine ?


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## 4metals (May 29, 2017)

Chloramine needs to be boiled and then sit for a day. The chlorine remains much longer than in regular chlorinated tap water. It is easy to test if you have aged it long enough after boiling, just add a small drop of silver nitrate to the water, if it gets cloudy, it still has chlorine in it. 

You need to heat the water to break the ammonia complex, then the free chlorine can dissipate. But it takes time, at least a day. Another trick is to add an excess of silver nitrate to form silver chloride with all of the free chlorine and dechlorinate it that way, but I believe you still have to heat it to break the complex. Seeing as you are using the water to mix with nitric and dissolve more silver anyway, the little bit of extra silver nitrate that was not converted to silver chloride isn't a problem. 

A lot of refiners do this with chlorinated tap water in tanks which they allow to settle and decant the chlorine free water off the top. Usually two tanks, one settling and one they are decanting from. When the silver chlorides accumulate on the bottom they can be collected and reduced to silver metal so you are not losing any silver.


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## saadat68 (May 30, 2017)

4metals said:


> Chloramine needs to be boiled and then sit for a day. The chlorine remains much longer than in regular chlorinated tap water. It is easy to test if you have aged it long enough after boiling, just add a small drop of silver nitrate to the water, if it gets cloudy, it still has chlorine in it.
> 
> You need to heat the water to break the ammonia complex, then the free chlorine can dissipate. But it takes time, at least a day. Another trick is to add an excess of silver nitrate to form silver chloride with all of the free chlorine and dechlorinate it that way, but I believe you still have to heat it to break the complex. Seeing as you are using the water to mix with nitric and dissolve more silver anyway, the little bit of extra silver nitrate that was not converted to silver chloride isn't a problem.
> 
> A lot of refiners do this with chlorinated tap water in tanks which they allow to settle and decant the chlorine free water off the top. Usually two tanks, one settling and one they are decanting from. When the silver chlorides accumulate on the bottom they can be collected and reduced to silver metal so you are not losing any silver.



I read this in a PDF and copy here :


> Add ascorbic acid (vitamin C). 1000 milligrams is enough for 30-50 gallons of water.
> Instead of crushing a tablet I would suggest adding a tiny amount of powdered vitamin C
> to the water. The sites I saw only suggest this for removing chloramine from bath water.
> Not sure why. They also don’t say how long it takes for the chloramine to neutralize using
> ...


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## heliman4141 (Feb 15, 2018)

Hello,
Im an old member back after enjoying several Gold recoverys & refines. I have one question ...........I have access to reverse osmosis at .35 a gal. verses $2.00 a gal.of distilled. I had always used distilled in the past in my rinses/washing etc. but, if the reverse water is fine id prefer to go that rout as i use a LOT of water, more then anything else, a penny saved is a penny saved in small recovery attempts. As always the posts here have been great reading especially the vid of the idiot that refined silver in his bathroom indoors with no hood vent.............. good grief! 

I hope i can sw to reverse with no issues its so easy to get at my local grocers machine.


Dave


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 15, 2018)

R/O is a lot cheaper - about 25-35 cents per gallon, if you bring your own container. If there are no chlorides in it, it should be fine for silver - I would guess it's OK. We drink R/O almost exclusively, mainly because the brand we use, from Walmart, has about 95% of the toxic fluorides removed.


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## snoman701 (Feb 15, 2018)

I'm to the point that I think I'm going to install a reverse osmosis system on the house water (well). I don't have any chlorides, but I've got some really nasty irony scum. 

I use a lot of tap water now, but even with that, the distilled water does add up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## FrugalRefiner (Feb 15, 2018)

snoman701 said:


> I don't have any chlorides, but I've got some really nasty irony scum.


Yummy! It's been a long time since I drank "irony" water. They had irony water at the vet hospital I worked at when I was a teenager. It goes down just fine as long as you're drinking it, but when you stop you start to get a taste in your mouth that's like you just chewed on a bunch of nails.

Dave


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## snoman701 (Feb 15, 2018)

FrugalRefiner said:


> snoman701 said:
> 
> 
> > I don't have any chlorides, but I've got some really nasty irony scum.
> ...


I'd offer to send you some for nastalgic purposes, but it precipitates on storage! 

Brita works wonders


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## jimdoc (Feb 15, 2018)

This is an interesting video on water;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVnXzGaD68M


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## gcdrummer02 (Feb 15, 2018)

Those of us in the country can have a lot of iron in our water, which would start precipitating out PM's.


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## jason_recliner (Feb 16, 2018)

FWIW, perhaps nothing.

The tap water here is already enviably good by world standards, though I still taste it. So I use a standard domestic, activated carbon, gravity filter for all consumption: drinking water, sparking water, coffee, tea, etc. Boiling for rice and pasta excepted.
I have use filtered in my "Distilled water only" steam iron for 25 years, and six years in my motorbike battery.
I've used it in a small (tiny) test run of silver in Lazersteve's cold nitric bisulfate recipe, with no clouds appearing. So I'm happy.

Naturally, your mileage may vary and your brand of filter may vary. But a fistful of dollars may gain you a whole lot more usable F, Fe and Cl filtered litres than continually shelling out for distilled.


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## heliman4141 (Feb 16, 2018)

Thanks for the replys guys,
Ill do a test on the water i get at the stores machine for any chlorine then, if any ill just leave the cap off a few days. I reuse the distilled water jugs as refills so no contaminates like milk etc can sneak by. Its all i drink too even my pets get only R0, the lime in my city water is the worst ive ever seen. Hard on kidneys it is! :?


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## goldsilverpro (Feb 16, 2018)

gcdrummer02 said:


> Those of us in the country can have a lot of iron in our water, which would start precipitating out PM's.


Why would it do that?


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## patnor1011 (Feb 16, 2018)

There are small water distilling units producing 1.5l of distilled water per hour. I run it long enough to make 15-20l which last me quite long. These units cost about 50-80 euro but compared to what distilled water cost in shops can pay for itself in no time.


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## gcdrummer02 (Feb 24, 2018)

goldsilverpro said:


> gcdrummer02 said:
> 
> 
> > Those of us in the country can have a lot of iron in our water, which would start precipitating out PM's.
> ...



Iron is higher on the reactivity series? Wouldn't it displace anything below it?


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## g_axelsson (Feb 24, 2018)

gcdrummer02 said:


> goldsilverpro said:
> 
> 
> > gcdrummer02 said:
> ...


What you have in the water is iron ions, not iron metal as in nuts and bolts.

Göran


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## fishaholic5 (Sep 2, 2018)

I collect the water from the dehumidifier I run to dry the air in my workshop, it gives me about 30 litres a day of chlorine and fluorine free water if I need it

Cheers Wal


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## 4metals (Sep 2, 2018)

> it gives me about 30 litres a day of chlorine and fluorine free water if I need it



OMG. Where do you live in a swamp!


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## fishaholic5 (Sep 2, 2018)

4metals said:


> > it gives me about 30 litres a day of chlorine and fluorine free water if I need it
> 
> 
> 
> OMG. Where do you live in a swamp!



Hahaha, pretty close if the mosquito's are anything to go by :lol: 
I think the climate description is the wet tropics

Cheers Wal


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## Palladium (Sep 2, 2018)

Here in Bama the humidity is tropical in the spring and summer time. 
My air conditioner RUNS, not drips, water 24 hours a day!


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## zito (Nov 20, 2018)

g_axelsson said:


> gcdrummer02 said:
> 
> 
> > goldsilverpro said:
> ...



So I can just ignore the rusty brown iron precipitate? I'm slowly working towards beginning refining here, and the water quality has been one of my concerns. Distilled water runs around $1 Canadian per liter here in town, but I am relieved to hear I can use the reverse osmosis bottled water from our water cooler for most things.


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## g_axelsson (Nov 20, 2018)

Unless you are aiming for high purity gold your iron containing water should be okay. Filter off any solid particles first.

If you want to be on the safe side, you could use a bubbler and bubble some air through the water for a while and then filter. That will oxidize the iron so it wouldn't affect the refining and any particles formed could be filtered off.

Göran


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## zito (Nov 21, 2018)

g_axelsson said:


> Unless you are aiming for high purity gold your iron containing water should be okay. Filter off any solid particles first.
> 
> If you want to be on the safe side, you could use a bubbler and bubble some air through the water for a while and then filter. That will oxidize the iron so it wouldn't affect the refining and any particles formed could be filtered off.
> 
> Göran



Excellent, thank you for that information and advice. The water issue is something that bothered me, simply because of the cost and hassle of hauling in distilled water, which was something I thought I would need to do.


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## 123cp456 (May 11, 2022)

would good old tap water be ok for making copper sulfate electrolyte?


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## Shark (May 11, 2022)

I use tap water. Our local “city” water is better than most around here to start with.


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## richoc (May 12, 2022)

You never know what is added to your cities tap water!
I made the mistake of using tap water and got a endless white unknown substance blocking my process.
I will only use distilled water now, even for ice cubes that I intend to use, processing. 
Just get a few gallons at Walmart, they are around $1 each.


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## goldshark (May 13, 2022)

goldsilverpro said:


> Why would it do that?


 Tap water can have a host of dissolved elements in it. One of the most prevalent is calcium. Our community well system has higher concentrations of calcium than whole milk. I haven't seen an analysis in a while, so I cannot give exact figures, but do recall it having more than twice the amount of milk. Overdosing on Ca leads to kidney stones. Don't know if you have ever had them, but it is very painful. Kinda like getting knifed in the back.
Even distilled water can have a multitude of chemicals in it. This is because there are a host of predominately carbon compounds which will evaporate at temps used for water distillation. Distilled water is not Chemically pure water, only distilled.


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## Yggdrasil (May 13, 2022)

goldshark said:


> Tap water can have a host of dissolved elements in it. One of the most prevalent is calcium. Our community well system has higher concentrations of calcium than whole milk. I haven't seen an analysis in a while, so I cannot give exact figures, but do recall it having more than twice the amount of milk. Overdosing on Ca leads to kidney stones. Don't know if you have ever had them, but it is very painful. Kinda like getting knifed in the back.
> Even distilled water can have a multitude of chemicals in it. This is because there are a host of predominately carbon compounds which will evaporate at temps used for water distillation. Distilled water is not Chemically pure water, only distilled.


Anything of concern will be removed during distillation. 
Volatiles will if designed properly overshoot the exit of the column, especially if one run an open ended one.
Or if it is a real concern just boil it some time, before the column are closed so any volatiles will have gone into the air.
Then it will for all practical purposes be as clean as your receiving vessels are.
Which in turn maybe where it is sinned the most.
Clean water into a dirty container will give you.... Expensive dirty water.


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## Lightspeed (May 14, 2022)

Water here in Australia to buy is ridiculously expensive.
I have tried every brand available at supermarkets and one from a lab supply.
Supermarket DW is around $3:50 for 4 litres.
Water from the lab supply was $40 for 20 litres.
I have tested all of them, boil down a sample in a clean pyrex glass container, all of them showed varying degrees of contaminant residues, the lab sourced water was the best of them, but still had contaminants, mostly carbonate residues.

It really depends on what your final product goal is, and your chemical process, even if I do Agcl, I still will not use untreated tap water.

After the silly cost of water and how much I go through, I just bought a 5 stage RODI unit. I use this exclusively now, cost of RODI resin is negligible for amount of water I treat. Sediment filter and carbon filter are replaced regularly, chlorination filter and pre filter can be reverse flushed under pressure at the end of the day its the most economic for my needs, I can make 0 ppm/tds water all day long, or just turn a inlet tap to bypass the RODI resin get drinking water at 30 ppm/tds.


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## war_child (May 14, 2022)

I got this little number for free a few weeks ago from inside a property getting remodeled. I haven't tried it out, or tested the product yet, but it looks like it will be simple enough for me to distil tap water now. Hopefully no more buying gallons of "distilled" water from the grocery store. Has anyone used something like this for refining? I'm wondering if there will be any problems using distilled water from this thing.


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## eaglekeeper (May 14, 2022)

war_child said:


> I got this little number for free a few weeks ago from inside a property getting remodeled. I haven't tried it out, or tested the product yet, but it looks like it will be simple enough for me to distil tap water now. Hopefully no more buying gallons of "distilled" water from the grocery store. Has anyone used something like this for refining? I'm wondering if there will be any problems using distilled water from this thing.


I have a similar model and it seems to work okay and it's pretty quite while running. I used the water awhile back to distill nitric acid to refine some silver. I did get a small amount of silver chloride during the reaction, but that could have simply been from the beaker being wash with tap water...just my guess.

I've never had the water tested after using it, so I can't say if any contamination came over with the water.


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