Rainwater is distilled water.
I may be wrong
But evaporation, sublimation, condensation is not distillation
Distillation necessitates heating water to Kelvin: 373.2 K
Celsius: 100ºC
Fahrenheit: 212ºF
That doesn’t occur in the normal rain cycle.
You can get those temps in nature but it would volcanic or other extreme heat. But then, that’s just a boiling off. Capturing it and recondensing it would be distillation. Hence, a “still” with manipulation and control.
Yes, Slummy, you are incorrect.
Distillation occurs when a compound or element enters the gaseous state and is then reconverted to a liquid state and collected.
(Gold can be collected via Mercury distillation)
And no, heated distillation does not guarantee a pure product. Even though ethanol has a higher vapor pressure than water. When boiling the mash, you still get 5% water in the distillate, as well as many other contaminants including traces of methanol.
Vapor pressure of water is high enough that it will enter the gaseous state at temperatures below freezing.
When condensation forms on the outside of your iced tea glass, or in our case the outside coils of our heat pump at 20 degrees F this morning, that is distilled water.
Even the boiling point can be manipulated significantly by changing atmospheric pressure.
When condensing syrups or juices, they are heated in a closed chamber until the top of the chamber is filled with steam. Cooling coils at the top condense the steam back to water, which lowers atmospheric pressure inside the vessel, and thus depresses the boiling point.⁰
Products are condensed in this manner to prevent scorching of the product and to make the process more energy efficient.
I spent many years working in a lab with both distilled and deionized water on tap. We often filled a cup with de-I water for consumption. It is harmless.
Distilled/deionized water is acidic. Very. Very weakly acidic, because water naturally has a low pH. Distilled/deionized water has no buffering ability. The slightest contaminant will cause massive pH swings. Even the absorption of Cabon Dioxide will depress pH further as Carbonic Acid is formed.
But there are lots of buffering agents present in the human body.
I use RO water in my aquarium. I have to keep a few limestone rocks in the aquarium to prevent pH swings into the acid range which can be lethal to aquarium livestock. Calcium Carbonate is a strong buffer.
