Do Pure Water Distillers Remove All Contaminants?

There is really no such thing as pure water distillers. A pure water distiller may remove certain contaminants, but many chemicals will still be present, so how can that be an example of purity?

Many bottling companies still use pure water distillers, even though scientists have shown that drinking distilled is not good for your health. In addition, once stored in plastic, the waters absorb chemicals used to manufacture the bottle, as well as the taste of the plastic.

At one time, a pure water distiller was the only option for a homeowner that wanted to guarantee his family's health. But, today there are better options.

You see for many years, the biggest worry was bacterial contamination. Acanthamoeba inhabited wells. Cryptosporidium and giardia lived in unprotected sources. E-coli and bacteria that cause cholera and other waterborne illnesses were in every source.

Homeowners with private wells may still need to take additional steps for disinfection. Even underground springs must be tested. But those of us who are served by a treatment facility need only worry about cryptosporidium and giardia cysts, because they are resistant to most disinfection methods.

Pure water distillers will kill the cysts, but so will submicron filtration. The best system combines a variety of steps to remove the widest range of contaminants, for example, carbon removes chlorine, adsorption removes chlorine byproducts, multi media blocks remove thousands of chemicals and ion exchange removes lead and copper.

Even a system that includes all of those steps costs less than a pure water distiller. They also use less energy. A pure water distiller requires a lot of electricity.

They are difficult to maintain and if not maintained properly, they become ineffective. Since pure water distillers aren't that effective to begin with, you should really consider another option.

Anything with a boiling point higher than water's will be removed by a pure water distiller. Anything with a lower boiling point or that can become gaseous will flow right through the cooling pipes and drip into the collection container.

So, it removes the mineral content that is naturally present and good for the digestive system, but things like pesticides and herbicides will still be present. I'm not sure why anyone would want to drink that.

The technology, if you can call it that, is very old. Man has been using distillation for literally thousands of years. Pure water distillers are relatively new. Distillation was originally designed to increase the alcohol content of fermented beverages.

If you are trying to make moon shine, you might be able to adapt a pure water distiller for the purpose. But, of course that's illegal.

There are some industrial applications for distillation. Processing film, for example, requires the use of distilled waters. Otherwise, there would be numerous spots on the negatives.