Drinking water is essential, and it is vital to surviving. We have seen our elders boiling the water or using other purification methods. How can one know whether water is purified or not? Well, looking into distilling and purified water may be of help.
To begin with, distilled water may be called purified water, but purified water cannot be called distilled water.
Key Takeaways
- Distilled water is water that has been boiled and then condensed to remove impurities.
- Purified water has been treated to remove impurities, including bacteria and minerals.
- Distilled water is often used in laboratory settings or for medical purposes, while purified water is commonly used for drinking or cooking.
Distilled Water vs Purified Water
The difference between distilled water and purified water is that distilled water goes through only one purification process called as distillation process, whereas purified water goes through a series of purification processes like ion exchange, coagulation, ozonization, UV light, sand filtration, flocculation, reverse osmosis and more.
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One of the critical differences between distilled water and purified water is that distilled does not have residual impurities, while purified does. Purified water includes electrolytes, while distilled water doesn’t.
Also, distilled water is usually processed in factories, and purified water can be worked on in our households.
It is important to note that distilled water is used in experiments and cleaning purposes, and purified water is used for purposes like laser cutting, autoclaves automobile uses.
Comparison Table
| Parameter of Comparison | Distilled Water | Purified Water |
|---|---|---|
| Processes | One process | Many and various |
| Parts per million | Up to 1 ppm | Up to 10 ppm |
| Cost | Expensive | Cheaper |
| Taste | Taste element absent | Taste element present |
| Time | More time investment | Quick fix |
What is Distilled Water?
Distilled water collects water in its purest form and is a perfect source of water to consume on a detox diet.
Distilled water is very safe and aids out to get rid of contaminants that are disease carriers.
Distilled water is made out of a one-time process wherein water is boiled, and collected steam is separated through a process.
The suspended particles rather than residues remain at the bottom of the vessel. Attached are lots of videos to explain the process better.
Distilled water is ideal for scientific experiments. Distilled water is also used as a coolant in cars or investor batteries. In short, distilled water involves evaporation and condensation.
What is Purified Water?
The water readily available to us in our taps is my default purified water that comes from the government. But yes, home purification is needed to drink that water.
Purified water is drinking water that is filtered and processed in order to remove contaminations, bacteria, parasites, fungi, chemicals, lead, copper, algae and other kinds of impurities or pollutants.
There are various processes to purify water; the basic ones are boiling, sedimentation, filtration and coagulation, and flocculation.
Main Differences Between Distilled Water and Purified Water
Processes
The process of distillation involves only one process of machine-boiled water that collects the accumulated steam and lets the condensation take its course to liquidation.
The process of distillation removes contaminants like heavy metals, nitrate, viruses, parasites, and bacteria. But on the flip side, distillation takes away all the essential minerals from the water, leaving the waterless satiety in taste.
The simple purified water process in our household is boiled water, but one also knows how water is purified through other means. One such method is reverse osmosis.
Reverse osmosis involves the permeable membrane removing unwanted larger particles, molecules, and ions from the water.
Parts Per Million
The capacity for solvents being able to dissolve in water is called the total dissolved solvent, and the unit is measured by parts per million.
Reiterating, dissolved minerals, salts, metals, and charged ions are expressed in parts per million as per mg unit volume.
The distilled water parts per million are only 1 mg per unit, while the purified water ppm can go up to 10 parts per million.
That means purified water holds better nutrient and health soaking benefits in comparison to distilled water.
Cost
Purified water is readily available and has a larger consumer market; hence it is affordable and cheaper.
While distilled water then gets into higher demand as it is not that readily available, creating a higher demand in the market.
Also, the cost of the purification process is less for purified water than for distilled water.
Taste
It is believed that water is tasteless. We cannot really define what water tastes like, but we do agree that we can clearly differentiate the taste of water when we travel from one city to the other.
Purified water has a taste element. The water purification process removes the unpleasant taste of all sorts of chemicals, leaving pure-tasting water for us.
The distilled water is created in factories wherein the water is brought to a boiling point, and then the condensation of steam is collected back in liquid form.
The steam doesn’t really leave a lingering taste for the quencher.
Time
The investment of time is more for distilling the water as compared to purified water.
As distilled water has a higher cost, resources, apparatus, and equipment needed, the time invested goes a little on a higher end.
Also, the process of coagulation and flocculation calls for time to invest, but it is worth doing and also is not as time-consuming as one may think.
The distillation process is time-consuming, as is a series of steps to be taken in a simple process.
- https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/00222615-9-4-493
- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/je60068a029
- https://aem.asm.org/content/25/3/476.short
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Piyush Yadav has spent the past 25 years working as a physicist in the local community. He is a physicist passionate about making science more accessible to our readers. He holds a BSc in Natural Sciences and Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Science. You can read more about him on his bio page.
I never knew that water also has types. Good explaination for distilled and purified water
Hi Eddie, yes we always thrive to provide the best and unique content for our readers
For me, I drink the water from the R.O at my home, is it distilled or purified water?
Hi Jed,
That is purified water and these R.O. companies advertise their products as providing purified water.