Many of us have probably heard about distilled water or distillate at least once in our lives. In fact, this is just highly purified water, actively used in the chemical industry and medicine. In this article, we will analyze what a distillate is, all the features of its production, properties and practical application. And let's start, perhaps, with the history of cleaning methods for such an important and widespread resource on Earth as water.
History
Over time, humanity, producing more and more goods, increased the amount of waste produced. Of course, the most popular method of disposal of the resulting harmful compounds was their burial underground, or release into water bodies. In fact, even after the "burial" of waste, there is a high chance that some of it will get into water bodies through groundwater. With the progress of industry, water purification systems were also improved, and this was necessary for the safe existence of people. The earliest methods of purifying and producing purer water probably date back two thousand years, when people boiled or filtered water through wet sand. Theseoperations was to make the water taste better.
However, there are now better methods of purification, and in general they are not designed to produce drinking water. The fact is that too much purified water is harmful to the body. It does not contain dissolved s alts, so body s alts dissolve in it and are excreted through the urine. And the leaching of s alts does not bode well, because with their help many important processes occur in the human body, including the functioning of body cells (potassium-sodium pump).
What is a distillate?
Distillate is a highly filtered water obtained by distillation in a special apparatus - a distiller. To distinguish between the degrees of water purification, the concept of a bi-distillate is also introduced, that is, a distillate that has gone through another distillation process.
Rectified or distillate - are they the same concepts? No, they should be distinguished. They differ in the way of purification: the distillate is purified by distillation, and rectified, as can be understood from its name, by rectification (this is the process of separating mixtures due to countercurrent exchange of mass and thermal energy). Rectification is usually used to separate mixtures of different liquids. It allows you to get the components of the initial mixture separately in almost pure form. But for water this is very often not true. Therefore, distillation is used to clean the most important resource on the planet. It allows you to purify water from many ions, as well as impurities that are inevitably present in it.
Selectalso de-ionized water. It differs from distilled in that it practically does not contain ions of substances. We can say that this is the most purified water in the world. It is used only for experiments, since such water is dangerous for humans (and, by the way, completely tasteless). De-ionized water also has its own way of obtaining, which is different from others, but more on that later.
Where is water distillate used?
We come to one of the most interesting questions. If this water cannot be drunk, then what else can be done with it, you ask. As we said above, distilled water is used for purely scientific purposes. With its help, environments are created in reactions, because even a small concentration of some impurities can spoil the ongoing reaction. In addition, the distillate is perfect for washing metal surfaces. It is widely used in everyday life for pouring into the iron because it does not cause scale at all.
Rectified or distillate is also used in pharmaceuticals to prepare oral solutions. The distillate, by the way, is used to prepare one of the alcoholic drinks - grappa.
Obtaining distilled water
What is a distillate, we have already sorted it out. And now let's move on to the methods of obtaining this ultrapure water. As a rule, the simplest distiller consists of several parts: a heating element, a vessel with purified water, a refrigerator, and, in fact, a container in whichaccumulate the resulting distillate. When the initial "dirty" water is heated, steam is formed, devoid of impurities of nanoparticles and s alts. It enters the refrigerator, where it condenses and flows into a receiving vessel in the form of a new purified liquid. This method is used to obtain light distillates.
There is also another way to purify. For its implementation, a tray column for distillation is used. In fact, the essence of the process remains the same, only the technological component changes. The tray distillation column is mainly used for the manufacture of alcoholic beverages, and more specifically, for the purification of alcohol from impurities. Its advantage, unlike a conventional distiller, is that it involves stepwise purification, and after each step, the purity of the product increases. And it does this without having to refill the distiller or bi-distiller.
Producing de-ionized water
A little more about another type of purified water - de-ionized. It is obtained with the help of ion-exchange resins, i.e., substances capable of retaining positive or negative ions. After that, the water comes out as clean as possible, devoid of protons and hydroxide ions. It is used in chemical experiments. In addition, de-ionized water has distinctive physical properties: its electrical resistance is very high, since it does not contain ions capable of carrying an electrical charge.
Conclusion
We have analyzed in detail the process of obtainingdistilled, bi-distilled and de-ionized water, and learned what a distillate is. Enough has been said about the importance of this product, which is actually the result of the distillation of water. Therefore, we will only say that, although water purification is important in everyday life, you should not go too far either, as this can cause significant harm to your he alth.
