Can electricity be used to purify water the same way boiling water does?
In: Physics
Heating kills bacteria. More heat evaporates the water, which can then be distilled to remove salts and other contaminants. Electricity, among other things, can heat the water.
Electricity can turn water into hydrogen and oxygen, which could then be explosively recombined into pure water. It is not cost effective at scale plus fairly dangerous.
Electrifying water does not kill bacteria except if it boils the water. Electricity kills vertebrates by interfering with their nervous system. Bacteria do not have a nervous system.
Electrolysis can be used to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen, which can later be recombined. That recombination should be pretty pure. It’s also a huge waste of power, since there are better ways.
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Electric current itself? Probably not. But you can do so many other things with electricity.
The most bang for your watt is this case is probably UV light. There are several commercially available UV light water purification systems (the Katadyn Steripen comes to mind), which reportedly work quite well, as long as the water isn’t cloudy.
Boiling doesn’t “purify” water. It might kill microbes but their dead bodies, and any other impurities, remain in the water.
Seems nobody here has heard you can use an electric spark to create ozone, which is good for purifying water, so yes you can actually 🙂
Add salt. Saltwater and electricity can make bleach. Bleach is added to water to kill microbials.
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