Methods of Distillation

Distillation

Distillation kits are part of the equipment of life rafts, but they can be improvised. To distill liquid you need to make something to do the job of a laboratory retort. Pass a tube into the top of a water filled covered container, placed over a fire, and the other end into a sealed collecting tin which, preferably, is set inside another container providing a jacket of cold water to the vapor as it passes out of the tube. You can improvise the equipment from any tubing (pack frames for instance). To avoid wasting water vapor, seal around the joins with mud or wet sand.
    An easier method is a variation on the desert still. It takes a little longer for the water to condense but may be easier to set up.

 Instructions: Take a tube from a covered vessel in which polluted/saltwater, or even urine is to a boil. Set the other end under a solar still. A sheet of metal or bark, perhaps weighted down, will cover the vessel. Even a cone of leaf over the water pot will help direct the steam into the tube.

Water From Ice or Snow... Melt ice rather than snow, it produces a greater volume faster for less heat, Twice as much for half the heat. If forced to heat snow, place a little in the pot and melt that first, gradually adding more to it. If you put a lot of snow into the pot, the lower lever will melt and then be soaked up into the absorbent snow above it, leaving a hollow beneath which will make the pot burn. Lower layers of snow are more granular than on the surface and will yield more water.

Water From Sea Ice...  Sea ice is salt (not good for drinking) until it has aged. The ore recently frozen, the saltier it will be. New sea ice is rough in contour and milky-white in color. Old ice is bluish and has rounded edges, caused by weathering.
         Good water can be obtained from blue ice, the bluer and smoother the better. But beware of even old ice that has been exposed to salt spray.

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Eric From Ruff Survival