“Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink”, or so the saying goes, regardless of whether you've just crash landed in some remote region, miles from civilization or in your own home trying to survive a natural disaster, drinking water is on the top of the list for survival. You can survive weeks without food. You can only survive a few days without water.
Obviously, there are several ways to mechanically produce distilled water. However, when mechanical or electrical power is not available, nature is definitely the next best thing. You can use the sun's energy to passively produce distilled water for drinking.
Solar distillers have been around for hundreds of years. They have been used all over the world. As early as 1561, Arabs used solar distillers to create drinkable water as well as water based fragrances. In 1861, the French used solar stills to produce Brandy from wine. In 1872, in Las Salinas, Chile' a solar still made of 64 water basins constructed from wood with sloping glass covers was used to supply water to animals working in the local mines. It was still in use 40 years later. Even the United States military includes solar stills in their survival kits.
Solar stills copy the natural process of the hydrological cycle, using evaporation and condensation to produce drinkable distilled water. If you've ever driven on a summer highway after a rain shower, you know that it doesn't take a lot of heat to begin this process.
Most solar distillers have the same simple design. A rectangular box or basin that holds the untreated water source and an angled glass lid that allows the condensed distilled water to drip down into a catching trough which drains into a collection container. A simple, single basin solar distiller can produce up to 4 gallons of drinkable distilled water per day.
Even if a basin of water is not available, water can be drawn from the ground through this same process and collected for drinking. Dig a hole and fill with anything that holds moisture such as plants, mud, even urine. Then place a container at the bottom for collection and cover the top of the hole with a piece of plastic. Cover the edges of the plastic with rocks, logs, dirt-anything in order to seal the edges of the plastic. Then weight the center of the plastic with something so the direction of the condensing water flows toward the collection container. Soon you will have collected distilled water from the ground.
In a survival situation, resources are limited. When you have water, but are unsure of its quality, it can be purified for drinking using solar energy. Solar water disinfection, otherwise known as SODIS, is a method of purifying water using the radiation and heat from the sun. Collect water in clear plastic or glass bottles and expose to direct sunlight for at least 6 hours. Radiation and increased water temperature destroys many water borne disease causing bacteria leaving purified water available for drinking.
