Couldn't you remove the salt from water by distilation?

Question

I remember on the boat they used sea water to cook vegetables without adding salt of course.

Then to make drinking water two kettles connected by a copper tubing removed the salt from the water for drinking.

Was I wrong and this is not what was happening?

Can you remove the salt by boiling and the steam goes up cools in the tubing and makes water in the other kettle that has no salt?

Answer 1

you are correct on that, but the best way is percipitation, just let the water evaporate slowly. heating water too fast can carry some of the salt when water evaporate.

Answer 2

To this this is mass quantity you would not want to use this method as too much water would be converted to steam and create excess heat adding to global warming.  To desalinize water in bulk is actually a vewry expensive process costing about 30x the amount per gallon then it takes to puriy our regulafr drinking water supplies.

Answer 3

You can evaporate the water which separates it from the salt. The difficult part of this is doing it efficiently. If you get the water warm enough to evaporate creating water vapor you have to cool that vapor down in order for it to condense. This will take more energy than heating the water in the first place. The efficiency rate of condensation will depend on the difference in temperatures between the warm vapor and the condensing system. The salt will not evaporate out of the initial container.

Answer 4

I believe it is desalination, not distilation.

Desalination refers to any of several processes that remove excess salt and other minerals from water in order to obtain fresh water suitable for animal consumption or irrigation, and if almost all of the salt is removed, for human consumption. Sometimes the process produces table salt as a by-product. Desalination of ocean water is common in the Middle East (because of water scarcity) and the Caribbean.

Desalination of brackish water is done in the United States in order to meet treaty obligations for river water entering Mexico.

Answer 5

Yes.

Answer 6

well if you evaporate the water into another cup the salt will stay in the first cup

Answer 7

ya

Answer 8

Yes. This is how most commercial desalinization plants work, but on a larger scale. Boiling water removed the impurities from salt water, leaving salt in one container and water in the other. The other way of purifying salt water is thru electrolysis, or passing an electric current thru the water to separate the H2 and O2 molecules and then recombine the molecules at another point , yielding pure water.

Answer 9

Yes, that's what happens.

Only I would describe it as removing the water from the salt because the salt is left behind as the water evaporates.

Answer 10

Yes, what you describe is a quick & cheap way to rig up a distillation unit.  It's kind of hard on the boiling kettle, as the concentrated salt solution eats into the medal.  A glass or titanium  boiler is better in the long-term.

Answer 11

Yes you can.  As a matter of fact you can do it with solar energy.