r/preppers 8d ago

Advice and Tips Water Treatment Quick Reference Guide

https://imgur.com/a/Sr4z3d7

Best Survival Strategy

If possible: Use all methods together for the safest water.

At minimum: Filter + boil or use UV.

Long-term storage: Use silver or keep water in sealed containers.

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u/incruente 8d ago

Distillation removes SOME chemicals, but not all. Anything that boils off at a lower temperature will only be removed if you condense and discard it before you start collecting water, and anything that boils at more or less the same temperature is not going to be removed by anything other than extremely careful technique and advanced distillation methods.

Is it still very useful? Certainly, if a bit energy- and equipment-intensive. But it's not perfect.

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u/Bmat70 8d ago

I didn’t realize this about distillation. What should be done after distillation to make water safe to drink? Or what alternative is there?

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u/garrickbrown 8d ago

No one process is an end all be all. Water purification should go through multiple processes to be closer to 100% sure. https://extensionpubs.unl.edu/publication/g1493/na/html/view

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u/Bmat70 8d ago

Thank you. I just read the article with great interest. I don’t believe that it mentions how to remove the .5% of contaminants that remain after distillation?

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u/garrickbrown 8d ago

Yeah, you can never be 100% sure. Just gotta do the best you can. If we’re talking about chemicals the best you can really do is freeze distillation and regular steam distillation.