Distilled Water

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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.
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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.
 
I don't know if anybody's familiar with the glacier water machines where you put a quarter in it and it puts out a gallon of filtered water as long as you bring a bucket or something with you to fill but they sit out in front of grocery stores and places like that typically. When I looked into it this is Municipal tap water charcoal filtered then reverse osmosis filtered and UV sterilized.
I can't speak for the maintenance and how often they change their membranes but if they're charcoal filtering the water first the membranes probably hold up pretty well and shouldn't need to be replaced very often. It's been some years since I used it but I used to use it for my 100 gallon reef tank and it worked well for me with the hypersensitive corals and invertebrates I kept.
 
Over here in North Dakota the tap water is from river water harvesting and processing for drinking water. It is high in calcites and iron and other trace minerals. I run a dehumidifier over the spring, summer and fall to maintain a controlled humidity in the lower part of the house. The system produces about 1 to 3 gallons of water every day pending on current weather conditions. I have used this water as my distilled water. Be aware that you may have mold and mildew spores in this water and should not be used drinking or other health purposes like a CPAP machine. The dehumidifier helps control mold growth in the home and has the benefit of distilled water for your metal processing projects. just my two cents.
 
Weehorror said:
I live in Scotland where it rains a lot. I have a water butt that I collect the rain and then filter it to take out salts.
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I am wondering what the extra acid consumption will be, in a very high dissolved Calcium carbonate content water. Water can look clear, and even after long term settling, still have a very high assay in Calcium. If using it with a high priced acid like Nitric, it may pay to buy the "expensive" DW. It just depends on the assay of the water, relative to the cost of acid ratio. No sense neutralizing expensive acids with cheap Carbonates, is the saying.
 
goldshark said:
I am wondering what the extra acid consumption will be, in a very high dissolved Calcium carbonate content water. Water can look clear, and even after long term settling, still have a very high assay in Calcium. If using it with a high priced acid like Nitric, it may pay to buy the "expensive" DW. It just depends on the assay of the water, relative to the cost of acid ratio. No sense neutralizing expensive acids with cheap Carbonates, is the saying.
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Water from wells and rivers may have Calcium, but I doubt rain water will have much salts at all.
 
I agree. I didn't really have one post I wanted to reply to. I just wanted to add lib to the discussion on tap and well water for acid reactions vs extra consumption of acids due to varying quantities of carbonates in said waters.
 
goldshark said:
I agree. I didn't really have one post I wanted to reply to. I just wanted to add lib to the discussion on tap and well water for acid reactions vs extra consumption of acids due to varying quantities of carbonates in said waters.
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Yes that is good.
I wonder what the best method of removing calcium from the water is.
Maybe a few drops of sulfuric acid?
The Chlorine is kind of easy and since it is only an issue when processing Silver.
One can drop it as Silver Chloride prior to processing.
Will these fancy filter setups be sufficient?
Ion exchange with RO system will certainly be good but also expensive.
Maybe Ion exchange alone for selected processes.
Buying proper distilled water is expensive, but when compared to filtering systems and volume needed....

I guess there is as many answers as individuals out there ;)
 
I have been using one for Silver refining for the last three months without any problems.
Its already paid for itself.Good luck with it.
 
rabbit60 said:
I have been using one for Silver refining for the last three months without any problems.
Its already paid for itself.Good luck with it.
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Similar models are available online from various sources. I've used one for many years, originally bought to provide distilled water for orchids that don't like hard water. If scale builds up inside it can be removed with dilute hydrochloric acid. To avoid this rain water or snow water can be distilled if available.The machine consumes just over 500 watts, with the cost of electricity considered no cheaper than buying distilled water at WalMart, but certainly more convenient. I've used mine for silver refining, making electrolyte for Thum cell and distilled water for washing silver crystal. As a bonus, you could buy a Variac-type transformer to reduce the operating temperature of the distiller and distill alcohol.
 
For a long time I used nothing but distilled water. For any and all processes, then I realized I only really needed it for silver. But at the same time I came across this little gem. It's a distilled water maker. Even better I got it for free. Saved it from being thrown away. I don't know why it was being thrown away but I got it and now I have distilled water for free. Just wish I had it before 8 spent all the money I did on distilled water before I had it. Oh well!
 

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I use water from my dehumidifier in our humidifier. I know that sounds a little nuts, but the air upstairs is dry, so we humidify there. The basement is damp from moisture passing through the concrete block, and especially the cinder block in the old cistern, so we dehumidify down there.

Anyway, I first filter the water through a coffee filter to remove any particulate from dust, bugs, etc. Then I put a healthy squirt of hydrogen peroxide in the filtered water to kill off any remaining biologicals. The humidifier used to develop a pink algae after a month or two, but with maybe an ounce of peroxide per gallon of water, there hasn't been any at all this past winter.

Dave
 
Rob2069 said:
I don't know if anybody's familiar with the glacier water machines where you put a quarter in it and it puts out a gallon of filtered water as long as you bring a bucket or something with you to fill but they sit out in front of grocery stores and places like that typically. When I looked into it this is Municipal tap water charcoal filtered then reverse osmosis filtered and UV sterilized.
I can't speak for the maintenance and how often they change their membranes but if they're charcoal filtering the water first the membranes probably hold up pretty well and shouldn't need to be replaced very often. It's been some years since I used it but I used to use it for my 100 gallon reef tank and it worked well for me with the hypersensitive corals and invertebrates I kept.
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It's about the same as what most grocery stores and pharmacies sell where I live in Palm Beach County, FL., Florida as "distilled" water in 1 gal. jugs. Our tap water is loaded with calcites, iron, sulfites, and trace organic contaminants in some communities from a closed rocket motor plant. The only way you'll get genuine distilled water is to run your own distillation column. Great idea. Thanks.
 
Rreyes097 said:
For a long time I used nothing but distilled water. For any and all processes, then I realized I only really needed it for silver. But at the same time I came across this little gem. It's a distilled water maker. Even better I got it for free. Saved it from being thrown away. I don't know why it was being thrown away but I got it and now I have distilled water for free. Just wish I had it before 8 spent all the money I did on distilled water before I had it. Oh well!
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Have you used it yet, the reason I ask is because they make 2 different versions. One version reaches the temp for distilling water, the other version is for distilling alcohol (174'ish F)..... for fuel of course.. ;)
 
Yes
eaglekeeper said:
Have you used it yet, the reason I ask is because they make 2 different versions. One version reaches the temp for distilling water, the other version is for distilling alcohol (174'ish F)..... for fuel of course.. ;)
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I have used it many times. Sometimes I find myself using it or the water it produces when its not even really necessary. 🤷 As for temperature I have no idea what it is. I know that it gets hot really hot but the water that comes out of it is not all that hot or it cools down quickly I guess. It's loud and it takes a while for the water to start getting going but it works pretty good. It needs to be cleaned out every few uses because a lot of that stuff it's filtering out of the water by way of distillation accumulates and is pretty gross.
 

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