can i purify tap water by boiling the water?

Answer 1

If you boil tap water for several minutes, many of the bacteria in the water will be killed, Some bacteria will survive, though. And, boiling has no effect at all on toxins and contaminants like lead or mercury.

There are very few places in the USA where there is any significant amount of bacteria in the water, so this is basically a waste of time unless ordered by your local health department due to some emergency. If you are worried about the water you can send a sample to your state health dept, and you can drink bottled water.... the people at the bottling company check the water to be sure that it is safe.

Answer 2

Yes and no. While you can boil water to kill off any microbial objects that may be living in the water, it will not necessarily make the water safe.

Depending where you get the water from, there may be a number of chemicals that may be laced in the water, some can even be very dangerous or even lethal. An example is in the mountains of Colorado, where there is lethal amounts of toxic metals in many of the streams (including mercury) from the mining (Gold mining especially).

Or water from somewhere in or near a city may have various pollutants in it.

Answer 3

Not really. The reason people will boil water when camping before drinking it is to destroy bacteria (boiling them will kill them). Bacteria are not present in tap water because, at least in this country, we have purification plants which ensure that the water is sanitary. Boiling tap water won't remove its additives and minerals though (if things like lead and fluorine are your concerns), because those things aren't affected by high degrees of heat.
hope this helps!

Answer 4

This would take care of some impurities, like harmful biologicals like bacteria and viruses (in the sense that it would kill them). It would not, however, remove other impurities like heavy metals and rocket fuel. If you distilled it, however (which you do basically by boiling the water until it turns to steam, then collect the steam and let it re-liquify), you will remove more of the impurities (not necessarily all, however, depending upon your exact set-up).

Answer 5

Kill the little 'nasties' that live in the water, sure.

Take out the minerals in the water, no. It would just concentrate them, unless you collected the steam and condensed it-then you'd have distilled water.

Get an "A".

Answer 6

By boiling it for 20 minutes you will kill any bacteria that is in it. There may be other contaminents left behind.

Answer 7

You'll remove dissolved gases, yes, so it will become purer in that way. But you are unlikely to make it bacterially purer unless it was contaminated to start with.

Answer 8

yes