Thread: Salt water to drinkable water

Hello,

I read something about changing salt water into drinkable water by using a filter that has very small holes. The salt water is pressed onto the filters and the salt, bacteria and other good minerals are filtered out. They said drinking such filtered water is not very good, because the good minerals are gone.

3 questions:

a) Is above true?
b) How about boiling water, catch the vapor, drink it. Does the vapor still have the good minerals?
c) any other good way to change salt water to drinkable water?

Thanks in advance!

Hello,

1) This is true (its called reverse osmosis). But you can re-add the mineral again later using mineral 'filter'.
2) Water vapor will be totally free of mineral. The water is called distilled water.
3) I think there's no other way... changing salt-water to freshwater takes alot of effort (both reverse osmosis & distillation take alot of energy).

Thanks for replying. But how can water obtained from " reverse osmosis " be bad to the drinker??

Bad? It's not bad. But it can be unpalatable.

Reverse osmosis, distillation, other purification processes - all result in water that is tasteless compared to water that has some mineral and gas content. It doesn't matter a great deal, but it is pretty off-putting if you're used to water from rivers, springs or normal storage mechanisms like dams and wells.

Originally Posted by chihwahli

Thanks for replying. But how can water obtained from " reverse osmosis " be bad to the drinker??

When you pee: you loose some mineral from your body (because body can't store this mineral). So you must drink more water with more mineral to replace it. If you only drink pure water (eg: pure osmosis, distilled): soon your body will no longer have any mineral in it and it will break.

*Our body can't store vitamin & mineral which dissolved in water (because it go out as sweat & urine), so we need to take them everyday. If you never sweat and never pee, then its ok

Thumbs up for the replies. Just become a bit smarter.

As far as I know, the concern that RODI (Reverse Osmosis Deionized) water (or Water For Injection, or Double-Distilled Water, etc) is bad for you came from the idea that pure water would supposedly leach all sorts of vital molecules from the body. In reality, as soon as it's imbibed, it combines with all sorts of impure substances in the gastrointestinal tract (foods, digestive juices, mucus, etc), so it's only "pure" until it passes the lips. I think we can call this concern a myth.

My colleagues have commented on the taste of pure water. For example, while it might sound like a good idea to use RODI/WFI/DDW in coffee makers to obtain "pure" coffee, they say it doesn't taste as good as coffee made with tap water. I've even had colleagues who won't use regular bottled water in coffee makers.

We don't obtain many minerals, vitamins or even electrolytes from the water we drink. We obtain them mostly from food sources.

Drinking distilled water in excess can lead to death by it being hypotonic.

See - Tonicity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by jrmonroe

We don't obtain many minerals, vitamins or even electrolytes from the water we drink. We obtain them mostly from food sources.

Indeed, we even obtain most of the water we need from our food.

Which isn't intended to deny that there is a need for fresh water. If it was a choice between water that doesn't taste nice because it has been purified and no water at all, I think most people would happily drink pure water. I have drunk distilled water, it's not that bad. It certainly won't do you any harm.

Originally Posted by pyoko

Drinking distilled water in excess can lead to death by it being hypotonic.

There, fixed that for you.

Ermm.. what's wrong with normal water? why need pure water?
people really don't want any mineral in their water? seriously?

if mineral in water isn't important then why is tap water flouridated? because it strenghten teeth.

Originally Posted by pyoko

Drinking distilled water in excess can lead to death by it being hypotonic.

See - Tonicity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thus by pressing water past the tiny holes, cells become damaged. These damaged cells can cause death to a person? How?

Originally Posted by msafwan

Ermm.. what's wrong with normal water? why need pure water?

Many places on Earth don't have enough fresh water (i.e. just not enough water or only large quantities of sea water or dirty water). Desalination is one way of addressing this problem by means of distillation, ion-exchange or filtering.

if mineral in water isn't important then why is tap water flouridated? because it strenghten teeth.

Minerals in water can be important (they can often be toxic). But I doubt anyone relies ont he minerals in water to meet their dietary requirements of any minerals. (Fluoride is a bit different as it is compulsory mass-medication of the population.)

Water is important , is there any more ways

Originally Posted by Strange

Indeed, we even obtain most of the water we need from our food.

If by "food", you exclude water-only drinks (so coffee, tea, soda, Gatorade, Red Bull, etc would be "food"), then I would probably agree.

Originally Posted by jrmonroe

Originally Posted by Strange

Indeed, we even obtain most of the water we need from our food.

If by "food", you exclude water-only drinks (so coffee, tea, soda, Gatorade, Red Bull, etc would be "food"), then I would probably agree.

I'm not sure what you mean; you say "exclude" but then say those drinks would be food. To be clear, I mean food; stuff you eat.

I had meant that if a substance was more than simple water, it would be considered a "food" — so coffee, tea, soda, etc would be food, then I'd tend to agree with you.

So, now I think you're saying that what a person eats, minus the all-liquid items (water, coffee, tea, soda, etc), contains most (>50% or even >>50%) of the water a person needs. I don't find myself able to agree with this claim. Can you cite a source?

Originally Posted by jrmonroe

Can you cite a source?

Will this do: snopes.com: Eight Glasses of Water a Day