Invention - The vapor compression distiller

Dean Kamen announces his vapor compression distiller with Stephen Colbert:

It’s not a new idea, but it is interesting. The big advantage of a vapor compression distiller is efficiency. A normal distillation unit boils water and lets the steam condense. It takes a lot of energy. The VCD design attempts to recapture as much heat as possible from the condensation process and recycles it to the boiling process. Ideally, nearly all the heat in the system is “recaptured” over and over again, rather than being lost during condensation. This lowers the cost of distilling the water. See this page for a nice explanation and illustration:

vapor compression water distillation systems

The ability of these systems to purify “any source of water” is slightly overstated in the video. If the water is polluted with a liquid that boils at a lower temperature than water, a distillation system is going to have trouble with it. But it is good for removing things like salt, heavy metals, etc. which do not evaporate at all.

[[[See previous invention]]]