eli5: how do water filters work?
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By passing water through materials that will only fit certain sizes of things through.
It sounds relatively simple and at a basic level is. Though there are different types from basic ones to fill reverse osmosis systems used in desalination systems.
There can be different levels of them at a basic level, [like passing through coarse filters to remove dirt and debris, increasingly smaller material ](https://content-instructables-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/content.instructables.com/ORIG/FL8/HFR1/IY3CSVIS/FL8HFR1IY3CSVIS.jpg?auto=webp&fit=bounds&frame=1&auto=webp&frame=1&height=300). Then maybe charcoal to absorb off flavor components that still got through.
Note, a filter like this ***does not*** remove waterborne pathogens. It still needs to be boiled or treated with chemicals like iodine or chlorine to kill those.
At higher levels more complex systems live reverse osmosis will have molecule sized screens that require high pressures to force water through but this requires higher energy to build that pressure. Which is one of the many challenges with just desalinating a ocean water to solve droughts, it’s expensive, energy intensive and ecologically tricky. It’s worth it to stop people from dehydrating but for large scale uses it gets more expensive.
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