If you want to collect the water, you can use distillation. This works because salt has a much higher boiling point than water. One way to separate salt and water at home is to boil the salt water in a pot with a lid. Offset the lid slightly so that the water that condenses on the inside of the lid will run down the side to be collected in a separate container. 
When all of the water has boiled off, the salt will remain in the pot.


Evaporation works the same way as distillation, just at a slower rate. Pour the salt water into a shallow pan. As the water evaporates, the salt will remain behind. You can speed up the process by raising the temperature or by blowing dry air over the surface of the liquid. A variation of this method is to pour the saltwater onto a piece of dark construction paper or a coffee filter.

This makes recovering the salt crystals easier than scraping them out of the pan.

To filter the water from the mud, put a piece of filter paper in a funnel over a beaker to collect the water. Pour the mixture through the filter paper and allow all of the water to drip down into the beaker leaving the mud completely dry. You might have to leave it overnight.

The video below shows how filtration can be used to separate calcium carbonate (chalk) from water.To boil the water form the mixture, set up a ring stand with wire gauze and a bunsen burner under the ring. Fill a beaker with the mixture of mud and water and place it on the wire gauze. Properly light the bunsen burner and allow all of the water to evaporate from the mixture, leaving the mud behind. You may want to repeat this a couple times to be sure all of the water was evaporated. In this method, you can't collect the water.

Water desalination is a technique that removes the salt from salty or brackish water to make it drinkable. It currently enables the production of 1% of all the drinking water used around the world but it is set to grow, more and more. In fact, population growth, the increasing prevalence of droughts, and the depletion of freshwater resources are increasingly driving governments to opt for this solution.

 

About 40% of the world’s population today lives within 100 km of the sea. This means that, potentially, 2.4 billion people could get their drinking water from desalination. What’s more, salty water represents 97% of the total volume of water on our planet, which makes it an enormous natural reservoir – as yet unexploited – compared with just 3% of freshwater that is normally used to produce drinking water.

In addition to these demographic and environmental considerations, desalination in today’s circumstances is an economically viable response for industrialised countries as well as for water-deficient regions. In the space of just 10 years, its cost has halved thanks to continuous improvements in reverse osmosis.

Reverse osmosis technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent decades. It is a reliable industrial process that provides large-scale solutions for drinking-water needs. Reverse osmosis produces drinking water by pressurising seawater to force water molecules to cross a membrane that is impervious to the salt molecules in seawater. The resulting freshwater is collected, while the salt-saturated water is treated, diluted and released back into the natural marine environment.

The two levers that must be activated as a priority today, to combat tomorrow’s shortages, are better water management and the securing of supply to make the best use of the resources that do exist, where they exist.

 

255 plants around the world

10 million people served

2.8 million m3 drinking water produced per day

Degrémont, a SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT subsidiary, has designed technology that can produce freshwater from seawater. It offers original and efficient processes for each step in the treatment, paying special attention to purifying the water upstream of the reverse osmosis stage. Formed in 1939 and having set up its first facility on Ile de Houat in France in 1969, this SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT subsidiary now operates 255 desalination plants and supplies drinking water to 10 million people around the world.

Australia, Spain, Chile and the countries of the Middle East have chosen desalination to keep up with their population growth and solve their water scarcity problems.  It is therefore in these countries that Degrémont’s most ambitious projects can be found.

In Melbourne (Australia) Degrémont has just commissioned the largest desalination plant in the southern hemisphere, which also happens to be one of the biggest in the world. The plant produces 450,000 m3 of drinking water a day and meets the needs of one-third of the 4 million residents of the second-largest city in the country. Degrémont also operates the biggest desalination plant in Europe. Located in Barcelona and opened in 2009, this plant supplies drinking water to nearly 20% of the population of the Barcelona region – about 5 million people – producing 200,000 m3 of desalinated water a day.  By way of comparison, it could by itself meet all the drinking water needs of a city the size of Lyon in France.

In Pureto Coloso, Degrémont operates the largest reverse-osmosis desalination plant in South America. The plant uses electricity generated by wind power and produces 45,000 m3 of drinking water a day. Since 2011, this SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT subsidiary also operates the Al Dur desalination plant on the southeast coast of the Kingdom of Bahrain. The facility produces 218,000 m3 of drinking water a day and underwent a full year of testing to determine the correct pre-treatment parameters for the specific characteristics of the seawater in the region.

It is estimated that by 2030, 4 billion people will be short of freshwater. Developing desalination today, therefore, means securing the long-term supply of water for people around the world. In short: it’s a solution of the future.

Water desalination is a technique that removes the salt from salty or brackish water to make it drinkable. It currently enables the production of 1% of all the drinking water used around the world but it is set to grow, more and more. In fact, population growth, the increasing prevalence of droughts, and the depletion of freshwater resources are increasingly driving governments to opt for this solution.

 

About 40% of the world’s population today lives within 100 km of the sea. This means that, potentially, 2.4 billion people could get their drinking water from desalination. What’s more, salty water represents 97% of the total volume of water on our planet, which makes it an enormous natural reservoir – as yet unexploited – compared with just 3% of freshwater that is normally used to produce drinking water.

In addition to these demographic and environmental considerations, desalination in today’s circumstances is an economically viable response for industrialised countries as well as for water-deficient regions. In the space of just 10 years, its cost has halved thanks to continuous improvements in reverse osmosis.

Reverse osmosis technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent decades. It is a reliable industrial process that provides large-scale solutions for drinking-water needs. Reverse osmosis produces drinking water by pressurising seawater to force water molecules to cross a membrane that is impervious to the salt molecules in seawater. The resulting freshwater is collected, while the salt-saturated water is treated, diluted and released back into the natural marine environment.

The two levers that must be activated as a priority today, to combat tomorrow’s shortages, are better water management and the securing of supply to make the best use of the resources that do exist, where they exist.

 

255 plants around the world

10 million people served

2.8 million m3 drinking water produced per day

Degrémont, a SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT subsidiary, has designed technology that can produce freshwater from seawater. It offers original and efficient processes for each step in the treatment, paying special attention to purifying the water upstream of the reverse osmosis stage. Formed in 1939 and having set up its first facility on Ile de Houat in France in 1969, this SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT subsidiary now operates 255 desalination plants and supplies drinking water to 10 million people around the world.

Australia, Spain, Chile and the countries of the Middle East have chosen desalination to keep up with their population growth and solve their water scarcity problems.  It is therefore in these countries that Degrémont’s most ambitious projects can be found.

In Melbourne (Australia) Degrémont has just commissioned the largest desalination plant in the southern hemisphere, which also happens to be one of the biggest in the world. The plant produces 450,000 m3 of drinking water a day and meets the needs of one-third of the 4 million residents of the second-largest city in the country. Degrémont also operates the biggest desalination plant in Europe. Located in Barcelona and opened in 2009, this plant supplies drinking water to nearly 20% of the population of the Barcelona region – about 5 million people – producing 200,000 m3 of desalinated water a day.  By way of comparison, it could by itself meet all the drinking water needs of a city the size of Lyon in France.

In Pureto Coloso, Degrémont operates the largest reverse-osmosis desalination plant in South America. The plant uses electricity generated by wind power and produces 45,000 m3 of drinking water a day. Since 2011, this SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT subsidiary also operates the Al Dur desalination plant on the southeast coast of the Kingdom of Bahrain. The facility produces 218,000 m3 of drinking water a day and underwent a full year of testing to determine the correct pre-treatment parameters for the specific characteristics of the seawater in the region.

It is estimated that by 2030, 4 billion people will be short of freshwater. Developing desalination today, therefore, means securing the long-term supply of water for people around the world. In short: it’s a solution of the future.