is there a way to convert ocean water into pure, drinking water?

Question

convert ocean water into pure water.

Answer 1

Yes...

The process is called distillation.

The process is to take sea water and boil it in a covered container with a tube coming out the top. When the water is boiled, it turns to steam thus leaving any impurities behind (in this case, the salt). The steam escapes out the tube in the top.

Normally, the tube will either be quite long or it will lead to a place where it is chilled. In either case, the intent is to allow the steam to cool and form water again. The result is purified water that is collected at the end of the tube.

These plants are common in areas such as the middle east. The plants are sometimes called a desalination plant.

The process IRL is more complicated than what I've described, but distillation alone can be used to make sea water drinkable.

Answer 2

Yes, After all, sea water is just water containing dissolved salts. Desalination plants generally use a technique called "reverse osmosis". Essentially, water is forced through a filter membrane at high pressure removing all of the salts. This is used in a number of locations throughout the world.

Unfortunately the energy requirements are very high, the process is currently unsustainable without the burning of fossil fuel or nuclear fission power.

Another problem is disposal of the captured salts. At present these are discharged back into the ocean. This can result in a hypersaline environment in the immediate vicinity of the plant depending on the currents.

On a small scale, the water can be separated through distillation, which involves evaporation and subsequent condensation of the water. Again, disposal of salts is a problem

Answer 3

Yes, and the process is called desalinization.

In the middle east, natural gas is used to heat sea water and boil off pure water condensed from the steam.

There are also small scale solar evaporation methods, or solar "stills."

HTH

Charles

Answer 4

Yes theirs company's right now converting ocean water to drinking water.10s of thousands of gallons a day.I saw something in the news about that company in some country doing that.

Answer 5

Using iron-free glass which transmits UV and heat it is possible to obtain large supplies of low-temperature-distilled water from sea water with "solar stills" . It works best where the water is already warm but it will work on cold sea water too. The UV passing through the glass kills most of the pathogens, if any infest the purified supply. There is a lot of stuff about solar distillation on the net.

Answer 6

Yes, however it is not cost effective. You would have to microfiber filter it, then boil it to remove all of the dissolved nutrients.

This takes a long time, but can be done; You can do it at home by filling a pot with salt water, hanging a cookie sheet ovet it so that one end hangs over a clean pot, and one end over the salt water pot, and tilt it toward the clean pot. Gradually heat the water so that steam is produced, but it is not boiling. the steam should condense on the cookie sheet and drip into the clean pot as fresh water. It will take a long time.

Answer 7

Reverse osmosis is emerging as the best prospect for expanding desalinization of sea water.

It uses less energy than evaporation. Saudi Arabia and a few countries in the middle east use evaporation because they have huge amounts of natural gas that is produced along with their oil that they have no market for due to lack of a pipeline.

RI uses electric motors to pump sea water through the membranes under high pressure and uses lots of energy, but less than burning natural gas.

Answer 8

Yes it is called "Desalinization" or the removal of salt from the water. A large number of companies are doing this already most notable is GE

Answer 9

Hi. Reverse osmosis. : http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=Reverse+osmosis&gwp=13

Answer 10

Yes, in fact in Carlsbad, California, they have done just that recently.