Types Of Water Distillers

Types of Water Distillers and Distillation Equipment

Distillers are commonly made of stainless steel, aluminum, and plastic materials. These materials do not absorb impurities from water and are easy to clean.

There are two types of distillers: batch units and continuous flow units (Figures 2 & 3).

Batch Distillers: Water is poured directly into the boiling chamber. The unit is turned on and the water is heated to boiling. When all the water in the boiling chamber is evaporated, the unit shuts off. Distilled water is removed from the storage container for household use. Batch units can range from 1gallon countertop units to 10gallon floor units. Batch distillers produce from 3 to 10 gallons of distilled water per day. The smallest distillers are about the same size as a coffee maker.

Figure 2. Batch distiller.

Continuous flow units: Continuous flow or automatic units are connected to the water supply line. The water level in the boiling chamber is maintained by a float valve connected to the water supply. As distilled water is removed from the storage tank, the unit turns itself on and starts producing more distilled water. A discharge line periodically removes the concentrated impurities from the boiling chamber. Distilled water is either stored in a container or is piped to the use area

Figure 3. Continuous flow distiller.

Distiller accessory: Additional storage containers, transfer pumps and special kitchen taps can be installed adjacent to a distiller. Increased storage capacity will only be advantageous for continuous flow units. For example, you can install a kitchen tap and an under-the-sink reserve tank that has a level switch to turn on a small transfer pump. This pump transfers water from the distiller to a storage container located under the sink (Figure 4). When the under-the-sink reserve tank empties it turns on the transfer pump to refill the reserve tank. When the distiller’s storage tank empties, it turns itself on and fills the storage containers.

Figure 4. An illustration of an under-the-sink water storage container

Figure 5. An illustration of a reflux distiller.

Activated carbon filters (ACF) trap VOCs (refer to Activated Carbon Filtration in the Treatment Systems for Household Water Supplies Series). The ACF units are normally located at the end of the cooling coils and remove theVOCs prior to entering the distilled water storage container. ACFs can also be placed in the water supply line to reduce VOCs entering a distiller.

Removal of VOCs in distillers without gas vents, fractional columns or ACFs can also be accomplished with some success by discarding the first pint (1/2 liter) of distilled water in the storage container.