Drinking Salt Water?

TOMBSTONE

TOMBSTONE

Joined
Oct 31, 1998
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Okay; Maybe not drinking salt water without treatment.What the are different ways to process the salt water to make it safe to drink in an envirement that you may not have a high tech device.How about boiling salt water?If this method is possible,how long do you boil it for.Can you soak up the water from the steam the boiling salt water produces in a cloth and then drink that etc.What about filtering it through dirt,ashes,grass etc.I would like to hear some innovative ideas for processing salt water in a survival situation.
 
Saltwater eh?

Well you could do it with a solar still I believe. I don't think that filtering it through rocks or sand or leaves would do it.
I pretty much feel that it would need to be a evaporation type process.

Later,
FLY GUY
 
FYI, Pur makes reverse osmosis filters to do just this. They are very expensive, but there is a personal size filter. Not very efficient though; the advice I saw on that excellent Travel Channel series is to pump at night when it's cooler, so you don't sweat out more water than you pump.

Joe
 
Distillation is the way to go.

If you can get two clean containers with covers and a pipe or tube, poke holes in the container covers and use the tube to connect them. Sink one container, your condensing unit, either in the dirt or in (yet another) bucket of cool seawater. The point is to keep it cool enough to foster condensation. Place the undistalled water in the other container (the evaporation unit) and make it get hot (sun or fire.) Distilled water rises up as steam goes from the evaporator into the other condenser via the tube and condenses as clean water, in theory anyway.

I believe that's how solar stills work. Of course, efficiency is the question.

Sounds like an experiment.

Mike
 
And if you put corn mash in this rig, you have whiskey at the other end. Done that a few times.
 
Michael hit it on the nose. That's how it's done unless you can drop a Mil. or two on a ROWPU. (Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Unit) ROWPUs are easy enough to pack as long as you are packing with a Deuc and a Half or a C141. Otherwise try the desalianation still that Michael described.
As Jeff added, there are multiple benefits to having a still around the hooch.:D
Best
recondoc
 
Here's some links to info on solar stills, including how to build them:
http://www.permapac.com/solarstill.htm
http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/dec/stories/water.html
http://ohoh.essortment.com/solarstill_rcjl.htm

I think the OD green Space Blankets (the $10 heavier ones) I usually have in my pack would make a decent liner for a solar still because they seem darker than the red ones. A piece of clear plastic sheeting could be used as the condensing layer. You can get the OD Space Blankets from Cabela's.
 
The solar still used by the author of "Adrift"(70+ days survived at sea) resimbles an inner tube with a black bottom interior and a clear "tent" that allows you to put sea water inside, evaporate the "pure" water to the top of the tent where it runs down the sides to be collected in a collar around the outside of the inner tube.

Desert solar stills are of debatable value since the effort to build the thing may expend more water resources than they produce.
 
Tombstone-

I think I see a depth to your original message that goes beyond creating a still or purifier with carried-in materials. Here are my thoughts:

Find or make any serviceable container for boiling water - an old can, a flat piece of metal that you could bend into shape, a hollow piece of wood to do the hot rock method, etc.

Prop hard non-absorbent or soft absorbant cover on a slant over the open top of the container. It might be another piece of scrap metal you find, a flat stone, or a smooth piece of hard wood. Or it might be a piece of cotton cloth. The idea is to get the steam to condense on the surface and run down to the bottom, where it would drip off into a container or onto a wadded bundle of material or fiber. If you choose a soft absorbant cover, then it would act as the condenser and catch-all.

You would have to work at the edge of your fire so that your catch basin would be outside your fire ring. You would also want to set it up in a way that would not need constant supervision so that you could go about your business and not pour more energy into it than it's worth. A lot of steam would be lost since it doesn't make an enclosed trap, but if it's working for you while you go about other tasks, just keep adding more water to the pot to keep making more steam.

I have not tried this yet, but I've been pondering it for at least several years. Maybe I should just do it, huh?
 
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