How to turn salt water into drinking water?

More than seventy percent of our planet is covered with water, whether it comes from seas, oceans, ice, rivers and groundwater, although the vast majority of it is salt water. So it would not be bad to know the simplest and most homemade way to convert all this amount of salt water into drinkable, especially if we end up being shipwrecked on a desert island or something like that. In this article we give you the necessary information so that you know how to convert salt water into drinkable water and survive if you do not have access to water suitable for human consumption. It is very simple; you just have to follow the steps detailed below.

Steps to follow:

1. In the first place, we must desalinate the water, that is, remove the salt and minerals that the salty water may contain; and then we will have to boil it to make it drinkable. So, the first step is to get a pot or a fairly large container in which we can put all the water that we want to desalinate. If we don”t have it, we can dig a small hole in the ground and cover it with a plastic tarp as a container.

2. To convert salt water into drinkable, now we must insert a small glass or container in the centre of the other larger one. Next, we will fill the pot, larger container or the plastic-covered hole with the water that we want to make drinkable, always below the level of the glass.

3. Thirdly, continuing with the salt water desalination process, we will cover the containers with plastic and leave them exposed under the heat of the sun, making sure that the plastic does not move and there is no uncovered side where the water could escape. heat and steam. To do this, it would be convenient to tie it with rope or fasten it with some other object.

4. Before allowing time for the water to evaporate and condense again, place a stone on top of the plastic in the glass. In this way, all the condensed water will fall back into the glass. The salt and the rest of the possible minerals, being so heavy, will remain at the bottom of the large container, while the water that we find in the glass will be fresh water.

Remember that you have to wait a long time for the water to evaporate and condense again. This will depend on the temperature we are at and there is no exact time, but do not expect it to work in thirty minutes. It is a slow process; you may have achieved a little more than half a glass at the end of the experiment. In risky situations, for example when we find ourselves lost in the middle of the desert or another area far from civilization, it is advisable to carry out this operation in a multiple way, in order to obtain more water more quickly.

5. Now that we have fresh water we can use it to water our plants or hydrate our pets, but remember that what we want to achieve is not fresh water, but drinking water, suitable for human consumption, and we will only achieve that with one last step: boiling it.

Boiling water in the middle of nature is not an easy task if we do not have a pot (if we have one we would only have to boil the water inside it over the fire). We will need a container, such as a plastic bottle, a plastic bag, a balloon, etc. With the only condition that it is completely filled with water (it cannot contain air), since we are going to introduce it later in the fire and otherwise the container would melt.

6. Once we have our bag, bottle or other container full of water, we place it over a fire. We can put the water on the fire, nothing will happen as long as there is no air inside. Now we just have to wait for it to boil, let it cool down and drink.

It is very important to only consume the water after it has been boiled, otherwise we could become seriously ill due to the bacteria that seawater can contain.