A Practical Manual On Sea Water Distillation
With A Description Of The Necessary Machinery For The Process

2 SEA WATER DISTILLATION. are separated and left to remain in the sea water operated upon, so as to increase its strength by the amount of saline matter so left. Decomposition Distinguished. 3. It is important to bear in mind that distillation is a totally different thing from, decomposition. In the process of the distillation of sea water, the steam that is generated from the water is still really water, but in a very finely divided state—that is, a collection of minute particles of water—the composition of which is still the two gases hydrogen and oxygen, in the same proportion to each other—i.e., two atoms of hydrogen to one of oxygen, which combine to form water. To reunite these two gases when once separated, condensation, as above al- luded to, is of no avail; heat, in the form of ignition, is needed to recombine these two gases, and then the re- union takes place with explosive force, but not imparting heat, as will be seen when we are dealing with fuels. Principle of Distillation. 4. The whole principle which underlies this process of distillation is, that the amount of heat required to convert a given quantity of water into vapour is returned as soon as that vapour is reconverted into water again. The object of the following pages is to explain this matter in detail, as applied to the distillation of sea water. Note.—As distillation can only remove or separate from sea water such substances as are not vaporisable—e.g., its saline matter—it follows that water that is greasy, or water that contains objectionable matter, if vaporisable, will not be freed of such matter by distillation. Vapour