why cant we turn salt water into drinking water?

Question

What is the problem with changing salt water into fresh water?

Answer 1

YYou can I am not exactly sure of the process though.

Answer 2

Very simple distillation process. Take a pot of saltwater with a lid. Make a little hole in the lid and attach some sort of tube that won't melt into the hole. Heat the pot with salt water and the water that comes from the vapour out of the tube is fresh water. There will be salt in the bottom of the pot.
The problem is that to do that for a large amount of water does take a lot of energy. On the plus side, the by product is sea salt. Most people will tell you it can't be done because because the companies that bottle water want us to think that that we should keep buying bottled water.

Answer 3

It is very expensive to desalinize water (reverse osmosis). The current method uses big plastic domes that cover pools of salt water. The fresh water evaporates rising to the top of the dome while the salt is left in the pool. This process is time consuming & uses a lot of energy thus expensive. I believe saudi arabia has the biggest desalinization plant in the world. A number of factors determine the capital and operating costs for desalination: capacity and type of facility, location, feed water, labor, energy, financing and concentrate disposal. Desalination stills now control pressure, temperature and brine concentrations to optimize the water extraction efficiency. Nuclear-powered desalination might be economical on a large scale, and there is a pilot plant in the former USSR

Answer 4

Certain places do desalinate the water... I think I read that Saudi Arabia and Oman have desalination plants.

The problems is the cost and what to do with the leftover saltier water.

1. Desalination takes energy to remove the salt which increases the cost while most places have local sources of fresh water, less expensive.

2. Now that you've removed water from the sea water, the sea water is now saltier (higher concentration of salts)... can you dump that back into the sea without changing the eco-system?

The link below describes the process.

Answer 5

Salt water from oceans and seas can be converted into fresh water through a process called desalination. In Saudi Arabia and the neighboring Gulf countries, most homes are supplied with desalinated water and it has been going on for many years.

Answer 6

it's possible. it's just not being processed because first of all, what is the salt water that you know? it's the sea isn't it? then why would you get salt water just to turn it into fresh water? we have clean water flowing through our pipes, it just circulates, when it is dumped with waste, it is being refined.. in this case, why would we try to get sea water and turn it into fresh? but if your question is 'is it possible?', then the answer is yes.. that's why we have chemistry.. so did you get it? i'm very sure the society today won't even bother to produce saline solution just to turn it again into fresh water, right?

Answer 7

Actually they can. They have s type of generator right here in down town long beach that is able to turn sea water from the harbor into drinking water. But I do not know if they are actually using it.

Answer 8

That is what is done in many countries using a desalinization plant. Problem is what do you do with the salt that is removed, if you dump it in the sea it will kill the marine animals at that concentration.

Answer 9

salt water can be changed into drinking water, but this has not been done at a large scale, because it wont be potable, so its easier to change river water into drinking water.

Answer 10

We can, It's called desalination. It requires quite a lot of power, but it removes all the salts from seawater making it potable.