how could you make salt water into fresh drinkable water?

Answer 1

through evaporating the water into vapor and condensing it into fresh water again by cooling the vapor

Answer 2

They actually do this in Saudi Arabia because energy is abundant and fresh water is scarce.

You must heat the salt water to boiling in a container and capture the steam in a tube attached to an empty container. First, the salt water evaporates and then the steam condenses into drinkable water. The salt is left behind as the water evaporates. This is called distillation.

This process is actually modeling what the earths atmosphere does naturally. The sun hits the ocean and evaporates the water, forming clouds. The clouds rain, bringing fresh water to lakes and rivers and the water table underground for wells. Without this process, called the hydrologic cycle, there could be no life on earth.

This only makes economic sense to do if the material burned for energy to heat the water is less expensive than natural sources of fresh water. A solar system could be inexpensive, self sustaining and efficient.

Answer 3

Desalinization is simple. A sailor in the 1600-1800 built a contraption to produce fresh water. Here's how:

Take a few glass panels and construct a pyramid. Add a catch layer (trough) on the sides midway to the peak and fill the bottom with salt water and close it up so that its air tight. The glass allows sunlight in, which evaporates the water. The water vapor rise to the top of the pyramid and condenses on the glass. The newly condensed water is relatively salt free and will streak down the sides into the catch layer. You are left with salt crystals and other solids at the bottom of the pyramid.

Due to pollutants in the water besides the salt, I do not recommend that this system be used regularly. However, in an emergency it will work well enough.

Answer 4

Get a pan and put an empty glass cup inside it in the center.
Slowly pour the salt water into the pan and stop a little before the water level has reached the mouth of the glass. Make sure no salt water gets into the glass.
Place the cover upside down so the highest point or handle is right above and facing the glass.
Start boiling the water.
As the water boils it becomes steam, which recondenses in the cover's surface and falls right into the glass. When water boils it becomes pure steam, leaving behind anything that was dissolved in it.
Wait a little while before drinking the water from inside the glass, since both the water and the glass will be very hot.

Answer 5

I tend to agree that we could convert sea water into unsalted water. If we built a tidal energy plant near the coast, we would have the power needed for the process. Then, if we built a plant, again, next to the coast, we could remove the salt through using heat. This would leave a salt residue, which I am sure could have many uses, or be returned to the sea. The clean water itself, could be moved about the land by using gravity, just as long as we pump it uphill first. This could all be done either using pipes, or specially built canal systems. Any place that it needed more gravity for extra movement, we would only have to build a small wind/solar farm or whatever is suitable for that particular area, to re-pump it to higher ground. Any canal system built, would also help the environment, by providing water to places that there was no water, and in doing so, increase the possibilities of life. Only when it reaches the area of usage, would it need any sort of sterilizing. We have the machinery and capabilities to make the whole process quite easy. Money could be seen as a problem, but I believe there are many people unemployed who could be used at low cost. Similarly, the prison populations. Sure, some countries could have problems due to political differences with surrounding countries, but that does not mean that the system would not work for the mass of the human population. Likewise, the only real thing stopping us doing such things as this, is money, which would only be of high expense on the original set up and political opposition. We have the know how, the machinery and capabilities, and we can, if we choose to, do this. every problem has at least one solution...

Answer 6

It's called desalinization. The simplest way is to evaporate the water, the salt is left behind.. Then condense the water vapor back into pure liquid water. A solar still is one way. It uses the sun's energy....doesn't work very well, but if you're in a lifeboat... it's better than drying yourself out.

You can boil the water and condense the steam into pure water... that's distillation.

The high tech way is to force the salt water under great pressure through a membrane which has pores so small that the salt molecules won't get through, but the water does. Works great for small quantities... This is called a 'watermaker' and used in yachts and smaller seagoing boats. It uses a lot of energy to pump the water, but can yield very pure water.... so pure that even bacteria and viruses are filtered out!

Answer 7

By removing the salt, basically there are only two methods for this:

Distillation - evaporate the salt water and collect the condensate.

Reverse osmosis - compress the salt water against a semipermeable membrane and collect the fresh water which comes through.

Recently there's been some research done about filtering salt water through carbon nanotubes but it's still very experimental.

Answer 8

Evaporate the water, leaving the salt behind. Collect the steam and then cool it so it condenses into fresh water.

Answer 9

Boil it in a pan, set up a plastic tent around the pan to collect the steam and let it condense, and have the condensed water collect into another pan. The salt will stay in the pan of boiling or heated water and the condensed water will be salt free.

Answer 10

You Empty out the Salt Water and Put the Fire in the Tube