What
is Distillation?
An
Expensive Water
Process!
Distillation is an expensive process that
heats the water to the vapor point and aids in removing some impurities from the
water. The theory is that chemical pollution and other contaminants will be
vaporized and separated off from the vaporized water. The treated water then
passes into a holding tank and the drinking water is drawn from this tank as
needed. The process itself requires electricity and adequate water, since it
wastes gallons of water for every gallon produced.
Distillation is used in rare situations where large
amounts of trace minerals (i.e. calcium, magnesium, etc.) must be removed from
the water to improve the taste. Some people periodically drink mineral-free
water for specific health regimens such as the dissolving of kidney or gall
stones. However, mineral-free (soft) water is detrimental to the health of the
bones, teeth and tissues if drunk over a long period. Such soft water is termed
"aggressive" water by the EPA because
of its ability to leach out the minerals, metals or other materials of whatever
it touches or passes over.
Other problems with distillation are:
- Maintenance: the units
require periodic and extensive maintenance to the piping that usually can
only be done by the factory.
- Holding tank: all
distillers require a holding tank to store the processed water, inviting
possible recontamination and bacterial growth in the tank.
- Incomplete purification:
distillation is not effective at removing the VOC's because many of them
re-condense back into liquid just like the water does. For this reason, the
distiller is usually combined with a granular carbon filter to remove
additional chemicals that slip through.
- Environmental
contamination: in some cases, distillers have been shown to blow vaporized
contaminants out into the surrounding air of the household.
- Inconvenience: with most
distillers, the homeowner has to wait eight hours to get a couple of gallons
of drinking water.
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