Distilling Plants, Flash Type 1973 US Navy Training Film; Aqua-Chem Model S500FL2S Flash Type

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US Navy Training Film MN-11194B “Distilling Plants, Flash Type: Principles of Operation”

“The function of the Aqua-Chem Model S500FL2S Flash Type Distilling Plant and its components will be shown and described in detail…” Produced for the US Navy by Kellock Productions, Inc.

Originally a public domain film from the US Navy, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

Wikipedia license:

Distilled water is water that has had many of its impurities removed through distillation. Distillation involves boiling the water and then condensing the steam into a clean container…

Drinking water has been distilled from sea water since at least about AD 200, when the process was clearly described by Alexander of Aphrodisias. Its history predates this, as a passage in Aristotle’s Meteorologica (II.3, 358b16) refers to the distillation of water. Captain Israel Williams of the Friendship (1797) improvised a way to distill water, which he described in his journal.

Applications

In chemical and biological laboratories, as well as in industry, cheaper alternatives such as deionized water are preferred to distilled water. But if these alternatives are not pure enough, distilled water is used. If exceptionally high purity water is required, double distilled water is used.

Distilled water is also commonly used to top off lead acid batteries used in cars and trucks. The presence of other ions commonly found in tap water will drastically reduce an automobile battery’s lifespan.

Distilled water is preferable to tap water for use in automotive cooling systems. The minerals and ions typically found in tap water can be corrosive to internal engine components, and can cause a faster depletion of the anti-corrosion additives found in most antifreeze formulations.

Distilled water is also preferable to tap water for use in model steam engine boilers and model engines of other types. Mineral build-up resulting from the use of tap water in model boilers can severely reduce the efficiency of the boilers if run for long periods. This build-up is known as boiler scale.

Some people use distilled water for household aquariums because it lacks the chemicals found in tap water. It is important to supplement distilled water when using it for fishkeeping; it is too pure to sustain the chemical reactions needed to support an aquarium ecosystem.

Distilled water is also essential for use in cigar humidors. Mineral build-up resulting from the use of tap water (including bottled water) will reduce the effectiveness of the humidor.

In contrast, some home brewers who want to brew a traditional European Pilsner will dilute their hard water with distilled water so as to mimic the soft waters of Pilsen.

Another application was to increase the density of the air to assist early airplane jet engines during takeoff in “hot and high” atmospheric conditions, as was used on the early Boeing 707.

Distilled water is also used in Constant Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machines to humidify the air entering the user’s nasal cavity, mouth, and throat. Distilled water will not leave any contaminants behind when the humidifier in the CPAP machine evaporates the water.

Until World War II, distilling sea water to produce fresh water was time-consuming and expensive in fuel. The saying was: “It takes one gallon of fuel to make one gallon of fresh water.” Shortly before the war, Dr. R.V. Kleinschmidt developed a compression still, which became known as the Kleinschmidt Still, for extracting fresh water from sea water or contaminated water. By compressing the steam produced by boiling water, 175 gallons of fresh water could be extracted from sea water for every gallon of fuel used. During World War II this equipment became standard on Allied ships and on trailer mounts for armies. This method was in widespread use in ships and portable water distilling units during the latter half of the century. Modern vessels now use flash-type evaporators to boil sea water, heating the water to between 70-80 °C and evaporating the water in a vacuum; this is then collected as condensation before being stored.

Solar stills can be relatively simple to design and build, with very cheap materials…