The Unending Process of Water Distillation
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010Human beings have put to use the practice of water distillation for hundreds of years which has been present in nature ever since time began. It still is a helpful yet uncomplicated way of purifying water by getting rid of majority of bacteria, viruses and other micro-organisms, as well as other contaminants.
Hydrologic Cycle is an alternative term for the Water Cycle, interprets the process that which moves water around the earth. In simple language, this means that the sunlight increases the temperature of the water in our oceans, rivers and lakes, which then brings about the water to evaporate and ascend into the air. The water vapour then cools down and condenses to create clouds, which then turn out to be heavy with water and finally rain back down to earth. Human beings soon realised that we could imitate this process to produce a purified drinking water source by heating the ocean or river water, and accumulating the condensed vapour.
The distillation process has subsequently been used in a variety of ways to separate mixtures depending on their diverse boiling points. Crude oil is distilled to break up the different components for their specific uses such as heating, power generation and transport. For industrial use air is distilled which gives out components like oxygen, nitrogen and argon. Most notably perhaps, and dating back as far as the 2nd millennium BC, distillation methods were applied to make alcoholic beverages. The method was also applied commencing from the eleventh century to produce important oils and other herbal tinctures.
Current day uses for distilled water in the house incorporate topping up your car battery, filling your steam iron and filling aquariums. Various industry segments like manufacturing of different chemical and medical products for example medicines, vaccines and intravenous solutions, generally use distilled water.