Would This Work for Water?

[sandinmytea]

I hate to say it, but it sounds like you're reinventing the wheel with this one.

First of all, if it rains, you can catch a great deal of water. You could also pump (cooler than air) ocean water via a pump through metal tubing somewhere to create condensation, but that's friggin' heavy!

Here's an interesting possibility! Apparently it worked for the ancient seafarers (or someone's pulling my leg, one of the two).

Clay Filter Turns Sea Water to Fresh Water.

I have thought about all sorts of nutty ways to make potable water, but I imagine that I am not the first monkey to come up with them, and most of them aren't worth it. One of my ideas was fun, and I think would work rather well. It comes in part from an idea I got from a friend.

It involves getting the appropriate (but smallest available) filters that would remove contaminates, and attach them to a system. There are hand-pumped purifiers, not cheap, but available at less cost than a full-blown, real-deal water maker. Something like that would be the basic filter(s) for the system. Then you pump seawater into a sealed container, where you use an air compressor (as opposed to hand power) to fill the container w/ tons of air and force the salt water through the filter system, and allegedly out the other end should come something resembling potable water.

Now, funny part is, when I researched how water makers work, this is pretty much how they work anyways (plus some complicated, but necessary elements). So again, its not unreasonable to figure that its just worth getting a damn watermaker! If its NOT your primary source, I suppose goofing with all sorts of different distillation/filtration methods is not too terrible an idea, but I wouldn't rely on my own half-baked ideas as my only source of life-sustaining water. I'd like to try and rig something together sometime, but not when I am relying on it during the middle or a passage somewhere! I enjoy thinking about MacGuyvering stuff all the time, and have given a few things a shot here and there. If I attempt anything serious I'll try and make a good photo post about it.

Good luck.

[beau]

there is a domestic version available which is made in Singapore, expensive to buy and run. Better to buy a RO desalinator or make your own, all it takes is 800 psi salt water pump and the RO filters and some plumbing.

[seandepagnier]

Yes, well I was doing this for the experiment, and to give some statistics on power requirements.

I'm still going to use the fridge, I can install it in my icebox, the fridge would not fit in the boat before, so it wasn't a waste of time.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by geckosenator

but I calculated it would take something like 2 hours to make an ounce of water.


.

Condensate does not mean it is clean.