…from a Generous Reader…
Early this year there was a shortage complete absence of distilled water available anywhere, and it went on for quite a while, expending my stored supply. Literally down to nothing but still having a bunch of lead/acid batteries that needed monthly maintenance, I tried my hand at home distillation using expedient materials. The results were not very encouraging, almost not of any use.
Shortly thereafter, supplies of distilled water miraculously re-appeared and the crisis ended. But I didn’t forget – and happily, neither did a Generous Reader! So expect a rematch and a review in the very near future.
with a basket that could be a steam juicer
Exactly. The difference is that in a juicer the top pot has a hole in the middle to admit steam, and drain holes to let the juice gather in the center. And a lid. This thing doesn’t look like it has a lid.
Very cool! An ingenious little set up and once I think about it, the set up makes sense with the cool water in the top “pan” creating condensing in the middle chamber.
Cool setup if you don’t mind the expense/hassle of boiling the water.
I’m going to mind it very much, clearly. This will take hours. But if it produces useful volumes of distilled water it’ll be invaluable as a backup. I could always get neighbors to repay me in propane. 🙂
Maybe you could use a solar stove and it wouldn’t cost anything
As a baseline for performance, I have an electric distiller. It’s rated at 800W and takes 4 hours to process a gallon of water. I thought about a non-electric, but was more familiar with electric. (Had one that died from a warped heater plate; it lasted about 10 years.)
I’m going through about a half gallon of water a month for 8 batteries (3600W system).
Another baseline for you. My juicer produces a gallon of juice after two hours of boiling on the stove. It should be a similar number for a distiller.
Wow. I wish you could edit comments on this platform. My last statement was ridiculous…the rate of juicing depends on the stuff being juiced. Since the output water of a distiller is the same as what you started with, it should produce at the same rate that it’s boiled away. So, however long it takes to convert a gallon of liquid into gas. Depends on the stove.
I second Anonymous’ comment. I know you’ve had issues with solar distillation before, but given that your shower experiment produced live steam (IIRC), I’d think you could make the sun work for you. Maybe paint this thing black and just set it outside on a hot day?